The 2026 Nations Championship will be the inaugural edition of the Nations Championship, an international rugby union competition featuring twelve men's teams. The teams are divided into two pools of six, and play a full round-robin of matches with the teams in the opposing pool across the mid year and end-of-year international windows, with the top teams in each pool advancing to a Nations Championship final in London.[1]
On 17 November 2025, World Rugby confirmed a second competition that would take place concurrently called the World Rugby Nations Cup.[2]
Although promotion and relegation are intended for a future date, there will be no promotion or relegation in the 2026 edition between the Nations Championship and the Nations Cup.
Format
The Nations Championship consists of two geographic pools or conferences; the first, the European conference, consisting of the Six Nations; the second, the 'Rest of the World' conference, consisting of the Rugby Championship teams, plus Fiji and Japan. Over two international windows each team plays all the teams in the opposite pool once, three ties at home, three away.[3] A cumulative north v south trophy will also be contested in this edition.[4]
The standard World Rugby points system applies; teams earn:
After the six rounds, a finals series will be contested over three days with each team matched against its equivalently ranked team in the other pool to decide placements.[6][5] All finals in 2026 are to be held at Twickenham Stadium in London.[5]
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