The upcoming draw will organize 48 teams into 12 groups, each containing four teams. These teams will be selected from four distinct pots, determined by their current rankings.

In Pot 1, you’ll find the three host nations—United States, Canada, and Mexico—joined by top-ranked teams such as Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.

Pot 2 features teams like Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, and Uruguay, along with Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, and Australia.

Pot 3 includes squads from Norway, Panama, Egypt, and Algeria, as well as Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

Finally, Pot 4 consists of Jordan, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, and New Zealand, alongside the six playoff teams yet to be determined, which will be decided in March.

Pot 2 is Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, the Korea Republic, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.

Pot 3 is Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Pot 4 is Jordan, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand and the six remaining playoff teams that will be determined in March.

Teams in Pot 1 will be placed in the top position of the group they are drawn into. Two teams in the same confederation — the regional groups FIFA splits international teams into — cannot be placed into the same group, except for the European confederation UEFA, which has more teams than there are groups.

During the group stage, the teams in a given group play each other in a round-robin format. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams from each group and the top eight third-place teams across all groups advance to the knockout stage.

The knockout stage is a single-elimination format, in which teams face off in a bracket format and must win in order to advance to the next round, with five total rounds: the Round of 32, the Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and the Final.

There is also a third-place match played between the losers of the Semifinals.