2026 UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualification

2026 UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualification
Tournament details
Dates	Round 1:; 1 October – 18 November 2025; Round 2:; Spring 2026
Teams	54 (from 1 confederation)
	← 2025 2027 →

Last updated September 18, 2025

The 2026 UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualification is a men's under-17 national football team competition that will determine the 7 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Estonia in the 2026 UEFA European Under-17 Championship final tournament.

Russia were excluded from the tournament due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, 54 teams entered this qualification competition, also including hosts Estonia. The qualification consists of Round 1 played from October to November 2025,^[1] followed by Round 2 played in spring 2026. Players born on or after 1 January 2009 are eligible to participate.

Format

The qualifying competition consists of the following two rounds:

Round 1: 54 teams were drawn into 14 groups. Each group will be played in a single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The top two teams from each group will advance to the Round 2 League A; the other teams will play in the Round 2 League B.
Round 2:
- League A: 28 teams will be drawn into 7 groups of four. The winners of each group will qualify for the Final tournament. If Estonia will be among the seven qualified teams, then the best runner-up team will also qualify. The bottom teams from each group will be relegated to League B of next season's qualification.
- League B: 26 teams will compete for promotion to League A of next season's qualification.

Tiebreakers

In the qualifying rounds, teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 14.01 and 14.02):^[2]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams had the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and were tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.

To determine the four best third-placed teams from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Articles 15.01 and 15.03):^[2]

Points;
Goal difference;
Goals scored;
Disciplinary points (total 3 matches);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.

To determine the seven best runners-up from the elite round, all results were considered. The same criteria as above were applied (Regulations Articles 15.02 and 15.03).^[2]

Round 1

Draw

The draw for the Round 1 was held on 5 December 2024 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.^[3]

The teams were seeded according to their results in Round 1 of the 2024/25 UEFA U-17 championship:^[4]

Each group contains one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and 12 groups contain one team from Pot D. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, the following pairs of teams could not be drawn in the same group: Spain and Gibraltar, Belarus and Ukraine, Kosovo and Serbia. Due to the current situation, Ukraine, Israël and Belarus cannot host tournaments on their territory and would therefore be excluded from the draw.

To determine the 2024–25 Round 2 league rankings, the following criteria was followed:

higher position in the following classification:
1. League A Round 2 group winners
2. League A Round 2 group runners-up
3. League A Round 2 third-placed teams
4. Teams promoted from League B
5. Teams relegated from League A
6. League B Round 2 runners-up
7. League B Round 2 third-placed teams
8. League B Round 2 fourth-placed teams
higher number of points in all mini-tournament matches;
superior goal difference in all mini-tournament matches;
higher number of goals scored in all mini-tournament matches;
lower disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
higher position in the 2024–25 Round 1 league rankings.

Teams entering qualifying round

Pot A
Team	Pos.	Pts.	GD	GS
Italy	Winner Group 9	6	11	11
Portugal	Winner Group 5	6	6	9
England	Winner Group 1	6	6	8
France	Winner Group 11	6	3	3
Belgium	Winner Group 4	6	2	4
Spain	Winner Group 12	4	5	7
Czech Republic	Winner Group 7	4	3	6
Switzerland	Winner Group 10	4	3	5
Poland	Winner Group 2	4	3	5
Greece	Winner Group 6	4	3	5
Croatia	Winner Group 3	4	2	4
Serbia	Winner Group 13	4	2	3
Austria	Winner Group 14	4	1	2
Northern Ireland	Winner Group 8	3	0	4

Pot B
Team	Pos.	Pts.	GD	GS
Germany	Runner-up Group 7	4	6	11
Iceland	Runner-up Group 12	4	3	6
Slovenia	Runner-up Group 2	4	1	4
Turkey	Runner-up Group 13	4	1	2
Netherlands	Runner-up Group 3	3	3	6
Denmark	Runner-up Group 14	3	2	3
Ukraine	Runner-up Group 4	3	1	5
Slovakia	Runner-up Group 11	3	0	3
Sweden	Runner-up Group 1	3	-1	4
Norway	Runner-up Group 9	3	-6	4
Israel	Runner-up Group 10	2	0	3
Hungary	Runner-up Group 6	2	0	2
Republic of Ireland	Runner-up Group 8	1	-2	3
Finland	Runner-up Group 5	1	-4	3

Pot C
Team	Pos.	Pts.	GD	GS
Lithuania	Third Group 8	4	2	5
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Third Group 5	1	-2	4
Montenegro	Third Group 10	1	-3	1
Luxembourg	Third Group 14	1	-3	1
Romania	Third Group 6	1	-3	0
Albania	Third Group 3	1	-5	1
Kosovo	Third Group 4	0	-3	3
Cyprus	Third Group 11	0	-3	2
Bulgaria	Third Group 13	0	-3	0
Georgia	Third Group 2	0	-4	1
Wales	Third Group 9	0	-5	3
Latvia	Third Group 1	0	-5	1
North Macedonia	Third Group 12	0	-8	1
Belarus	Third Group 7	0	-9	2

Pot D
Team	Pos.	Pts.	GD	GS
Scotland	Last Group 8	3	-4	3
Kazakhstan	Last Group 4	1	-5	5
Azerbaijan	Last Group 6	1	-7	1
Estonia	Last Group 12	0	-8	3
Armenia	Last Group 2	0	-11	1
Moldova	Last Group 10	0	-11	0
Malta	Last Group 1	0	-12	1
Andorra	Last Group 7	0	-14	1
San Marino	Last Group 9	0	-14	0
Faroe Islands	Last Group 3	0	-14	0
Gibraltar	Last Group 11	0	-19	0
Liechtenstein	Last Group 5	0	-24	0

Group 1

Pos	Team	Qualification
1	Italy	Round 2 League A
2	Ukraine	Round 2 League A
3	Montenegro	Round 2 League B
4	Estonia (H)	Round 2 League B

First match(es) will be played: 1 October 2025. Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Qualification tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

1 October 2025