The 2026 World Rugby Nations Championship will be the inaugural edition of the World Rugby Nations Championship, an international rugby union competition featuring two divisions made up of twelve men's teams. Each division is divided into two pools of six, and plays 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 the first division, the Nations Championship division advancing to a Nations Championship final in London.[1]
On 17 November 2025, World Rugby confirmed the second division would compete for a separate trophy 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 competition is split into two divisions of two pools of six teams each, the first division, the Nations Championship itself consists of two geographic 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]
The second division consists of all other teams that have qualified for the 2027 Men's Rugby World Cup through the qualification process. On 17 November 2026, World Rugby announced that the competition would be called the World Rugby Nations Cup[2]. At the same time, it was announced that in Rugby World Cup and British & Irish Lions years when the Nations Championship and Nations Cup are not played, 'cross competition matches' between the Nations Championship teams and the Nations Cup teams will be prioritised.
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