The 2026 UEFA Futsal Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Futsal Euro 2026, will be the 13th edition of the UEFA Futsal Championship, the quadrennial international futsal championship organised by UEFA for the men's national teams of Europe.
This will be the second tournament to be held on a four-year basis after 2022. It will take place between 21 January and 7 February 2026.[1] The tournament was supposed to be held solely in Latvia and Lithuania, but due to their unwillingness to accommodate Belarus, UEFA added Slovenia as a third co-host as the Slovenians agreed to hosting the Belarusian team.[2][3] This marks the first time the Futsal Euro is co-hosted and the first UEFA tournament to have three nations hosting (excluding UEFA Euro 2020 as twelve cities across Europe hosted the event). This will also be the first time a senior UEFA national team tournament is held in the Baltics.
For the second time after the expansion in 2022, 16 teams will take part. Qualification took place between April 2024 and September 2025. The original two co-hosts, Latvia and Lithuania, qualified automatically, becoming the first host nations to make their debut at the same tournament they are hosting. Armenia will also make their debut.
Portugal are the two-time defending champions after previously winning in 2018 and 2022.
The bidding procedure for hosting was launched in 2022, with a deadline of January 2023 to express their interest in hosting. UEFA requirements states the host country needs to have two arena, one with a spectator capacity of at least 7,500 and the other with at least 4,500.[4]
The final proposal had to delivered with the bid dossier in May 2023 at the latest, and UEFA received four bids:[4]
On 2 December 2023, Latvia and Lithuania were awarded the hosting rights in Hamburg, Germany.[5][6]
Slovenia added as a co-host
However, problems emerged with the hosting arrangement after Belarus qualified, with neither country willing to host them due to the Russo-Ukrainian war.[7][8] UEFA was supposed to make a decision in May 2025 but it was delayed.[9] On 27 June 2025, Slovenia were added as a third co-host, with two venues in Ljubljana.[3] The plan was approved by the Slovenian government as well.[10][11]Belarus and Kazakhstan also stated an interest in hosting the event.[12] The arrangement is very similar to the India and Pakistan cricket arrangement where neither side can play a world cup in the other country, so a neutral venue has to be found. Arena Stožice and Tivoli Arena have been selected by Slovenia.
Preparations
On 22 October 2024, UEFA representatives went to observe Lithuania's preparations for the second time.[13]
On 30 September 2025, Slovenia's official website was released.[14]
On 17 October 2025, Slovenian captain, Igor Osredkar, and former Slovenian football international, Bojan Jokić, were revealed as Slovenia's ambassadors.[15][16]
On 24 October, on the day of the draw, Slovenia set up a countdown clock for the tournament.[17]
On 27 October, a newly designed trophy for the Futsal Euro was shown for the first time.[19]
Tickets
On 27 October at 12:00 CET, tickets sales started.[20][21] The tickets are split into categories 1 and 2, priced at 20 and 15 Euros respectively. VIP and hospitality tickets cost 100 Euros.
A total 48 teams took part in qualification. After the preliminary round, 40 teams were divided into ten groups of four, held in a round-robin home-and-away format. The group winners secure qualification while the best eight runners-up advanced to the play-offs. The eight play-off teams were split into four separate ties. The four winners of the play-offs took the final four spots. Qualification was held between 9 April 2024 and 24 September 2025.
Of the sixteen teams, only 8 took part in 2022. Co-hosts Latvia and Lithuania automatically qualified and will debut, marking the first time that the host nations are making their debut at the same tournament they are hosting. From the qualification process, Armenia qualified for the first time, with the Armenians qualifying for a UEFA tournament for the first time ever. Regarding the returnees, Belarus will make their second appearance after 2010, 2014 hosts Belgium qualified after failing to make it since that year, Czech Republic and Hungary secured their passage after a 10-year absence and France progressed after a one edition drought.
Regarding the absentees, the most notable teams are Kazakhstan and former champions Russia. The Kazakhs have reached the knockout stage of the last six major tournaments but due to new rules regarding naturalized players, their squad was weakened during qualification, leading to them missing out after losing their play-off tie against Italy on penalties. The Russians will not take part for the first time due to UEFA's ban after the country's invasion of Ukraine. Perennial participants, Azerbaijan, also failed to qualify for the first time since 2007 after coming bottom of their qualification group. 2022 hosts and 2024 FIFA Futsal World Cup participants, Netherlands, couldn't make it after finishing as the one of the worst runner-ups, being the first team since Belgium in 2016 to not qualify after hosting. Serbia failed to advance after making the previous three editions. Having made their debut in the previous edition, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland and Slovakia all failed to qualify, leaving Georgia as the only team who managed to do so.
The highest ranked team to fail to qualify was 8th, Kazakhstan[a] while Hungary[b] is the lowest ranked team to make it ranked 38th.
Qualified teams
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
Note BLR: Latvia's Sports Law states that it is prohibited in Latvia to organize team sports competitions of national teams (adults, youth and juniors) in which national teams of Russia or Belarus participate under their flag or in a neutral status (2nd paragraph of article 171).[22][23] On 27 June, UEFA announced they would play all their games in Slovenia.
Note UKR: As of April 2025, the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine has yet to sanction the Ukraine national team's participation at the UEFA Futsal Euro; a boycott of the tournament is being considered in protest of the Belarus national team being allowed to compete whom it believes should be barred from participating due to Belarus' role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[24]
Venues
The tournament will be held at four venues, with two in Ljubljana and one each in Riga and Kaunas.[3] Before Slovenia's inclusion, the final was planned to be in Riga.[25][26] The opening match will be in Riga.[27] The final will be at Arena Stožice in Ljubljana. Latvia and Lithuania will host one group and a quarterfinal, while Slovenia will organise two groups and the remaining knockout stage matches. With UEFA not allowing arenas to include sponsors in their names, the Xiaomi Arena was changed to its original name, Arena Riga, for the tournament.
The draw was held at 12:00 EET on 24 October 2025 at the Žalgiris Arena in Kaunas, Lithuania.[32][33][34][35] Lithuanian presenter, Gabrielė Martirosian hosted the draw. The guests were Portuguese futsal legend, Ricardinho and Lithuanian professional boxer and tournament ambassador Eimantas Stanionis, who assisted with the draw. Before the draw started, co-hosts Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia were all pre-allocated into positions A1, B1 and C1 in each of their groups respectively. The draw started with, in order, pots 1, 2, 3 and 4 being drawn, with each team selected then allocated into the first available group alphabetically. The position for the team within the group would then be drawn (for the purpose of the schedule).
The only restrictions were that due to domestic laws in Latvia and Lithuania, which prohibit matches involving Belarusian teams to be played in their countries, Belarus had to be drawn in a group held in Slovenia. The other restrictions is that Ukraine had to be placed into a group based in Latvia and Lithuania in order to avoid playing Belarus as far into the tournament as possible (if the scenario does happen).
Seeding
The seeding was based off the UEFA men's futsal national team coefficient rankings as of 26 September 2025.[36]
Each national team have to submit a squad of 14 players, two of whom must be goalkeepers. During the final tournament, each team is allowed to replace a maximum of one outfield player if they are injured or ill preventing them from participating in the tournament. Each team is also allowed to temporarily replace a goalkeeper if there are fewer than two healthy goalkeepers.[37]
Group stage
The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals. The schedule was announced after the draw by UEFA.[38]
Tiebreakers
In the group stage, 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 20.01 and 20.02):[37]
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);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the final draw.
All times are local.[39][40] Latvia and Lithuania use EET (UTC+2) and Slovenia uses CET (UTC+1).
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where extra time is not played but a direct penalty shoot-out is used, instead.
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