2026 African U-20 Women's World Cup qualification

2026 African U-20 Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament

Tournament details
Dates	9 May 2025 – 10 May 2026
Teams	38
← 2024 2028 →

The 2026 African U-20 Women's World Cup qualification is the 13th edition of the African U-20 Women's World Cup qualification, the biennial international youth football competition organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to determine which women's under-20 national teams from Africa qualify for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. Players born on or after 1 January 2006 were eligible to compete in the tournament.

Four teams qualified from this tournament for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland as the CAF representatives.

Draw

A total of 38 (out of 54) CAF member national teams entered the qualifying rounds. The draw was held on 12 December 2024 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. ^{[1] [2]}

• First Round: The 12 lowest-ranked teams, based on previous U-20 Women's World Cup qualifiers performance, will contest in this round. The six winners will advance to join the 26 top-ranked teams exempted from the first round.
• Second Round: The six first-round winners and 26 exempted teams will form 32 teams. These will battle it out for 16 spots in the third round.
• Third Round: The remaining 16 teams will compete in a knockout format to determine the eight teams advancing to the fourth round.
• Fourth Round: The final eight teams will play knockout ties, with the winners earning qualification to the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.

Format

Qualification ties were played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the away goals rule would be applied, and if still tied, the penalty shoot-out (no extra time) would be used to determine the winner. ^[3]

Schedule

Round	Leg	Date
First round	First leg	9–11 May 2025
	Second leg	16–18 May 2025
Second round	First leg	19–21 September 2025
	Second leg	26–28 September 2025
Third round	First leg	6–8 February 2026
	Second leg	12–14 February 2026
Fourth round	First leg	1–3 May 2026
	Second leg	8–10 May 2026

First round

Team 1	Agg. Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Gabon		Niger
Togo		Tunisia
Gambia		Ivory Coast
Rwanda		Zimbabwe
South Sudan		Djibouti
Malawi		Central African Republic

Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup

The following four teams from CAF qualified for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland.

Team	Qualified on	Previous appearances in FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 1

¹Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

See also

• Football in Africa portal
• Women's association football portal

• 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations
• 2025 African U-17 Women's World Cup qualification
• 2026 African U-17 Women's World Cup qualification

References

1. "CAF to host Draw for African Qualifiers for FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Cairo on Thursday". Cafonline.com. 11 December 2024. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
2. "CAF maps out road to Poland 2026: U-20 Women's World Cup African Qualifiers Draw completed". Cafonline.com. 12 December 2024. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
3. "Regulations of the Women Africa Cup of Nations" (PDF). CAF.