The 2026 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship qualification is the women's under-17 national football team competition that will determine the 7 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Northern Ireland in the 2026 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship final tournament.
Four national teams decided not to participate in the event and Russia were excluded from the tournament due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, including hosts Northern Ireland, 49 teams entered this qualification competition. The qualification consists of a Round 1 played from 24 September to 2 December 2025, followed by a 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:
League A: 28 teams were drawn into seven groups of four. Each group will be played in a single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The teams finishing fourth will be relegated to Round 2 League B; the other teams will advance to Round 2 League A.
League B: 21 teams were drawn into six groups. Each group will be played in a single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The group winners and the best runner-up team will be promoted to Round 2 League A.
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 Northern Ireland will be among the seven qualified teams, then the best runner-up team will also qualify.
League B: Teams in League B will compete for promotion to League A for the next season competition.
Tiebreakers
In Round 1 and Round 2, 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 are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 17.01 and 17.02):[1]
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 have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are 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);
Position in the applicable ranking:
for teams in Round 1, position in 2024–25 Round 2 league rankings;
for teams in Round 2, position in the Round 1 league ranking.
To determine the five best third-placed teams from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place are discarded. The following criteria are applied (Regulations Article 15.01):[1]
Points;
Goal difference;
Goals scored;
Disciplinary points;
Position in the applicable ranking:
for teams in Round 1, position in the coefficient rankings;
for teams in Round 2, position in the Round 1 league ranking.
Round 1
Draw
The draw for the Round 1 was held on 16 June 2025, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[2]
The teams were seeded according to their final group standings of the 2024–25 competition (Regulations Article 13.01).[1]
Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. For political reasons, Belarus and Ukraine could not be drawn in the same group in League A.[2]
To determine the 2024–25 Round 2 league rankings, the following criteria was followed:
higher position in the following classification:
League A Round 2 group winners
League A Round 2 group runners-up
League A Round 2 third-placed teams
Teams promoted from League B
Teams relegated from League A
League B Round 2 runners-up
League B Round 2 third-placed teams
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.
To determine the best runner-up, only the results of the runner-up teams against the first and third-placed teams in their group are taken into account.
Updated to match(es) played on 23 October 2025. Source: UEFA Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) goals scored; 4) disciplinary points; 5) coefficient ranking.
Round 2
Draw
The draw for Round 2 will be made on 11 December 2024 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[4]
The 21 teams of Round 1 League A and the 7 teams of Round 2 League B (six group winners and the best runner-up) are drawn in seven groups of four teams.
Because League B has three groups with only 3 teams, only the points of the winners from each group in League B against the second and third-placed teams will be transferred to round 2. All group winners and the best runner-up are automatically seeded into pot D.[5]
The teams are seeded according to their results in the round 1 (Regulations Article 15.01).[6]
Updated to match(es) played on 23 October 2025. Source: UEFA Rules for classification: 1) round 1 position; 2) points; 3) goal difference; 4) goals scored; 5) disciplinary points; 6) coefficient.
Teams entering League B
The six best fourth-placed teams in League A will be automatically seeded into Pot A. The seventh fourth-placed team in League A and the runners-up from League B are automatically seeded into Pot B, and the third and fourth-placed teams in League B are automatically seeded into pot C.
Updated to match(es) played on 23 October 2025. Source: UEFA Rules for classification: 1) round 1 position; 2) points; 3) goal difference; 4) goals scored; 5) disciplinary points; 6) coefficient.
Goalscorers
In the qualifying round, there have been 82 goals scored in 24 matches, for an average of 3.42 goals per match(as of 23 October 2025).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Yzze Laman 
Blanka Zając (3 goals each)
