World Cup 2030: hosts, dates and format

The centenary World Cup

The 2030 tournament will be the 24th FIFA World Cup and falls a hundred years after the first, played in Uruguay in 1930. FIFA marked the anniversary by splitting the event in a way no World Cup has been split before. Morocco, Portugal and Spain are the hosts. Before the tournament settles there, three opening matches are to be played in South America: one in Montevideo, one in Buenos Aires and one in Asunción.

That makes it the first World Cup staged on three continents and in more than one confederation, the first held in North Africa, and the first in Africa since South Africa 2010. Morocco, Portugal and Paraguay have never staged World Cup matches before. Spain hosted in 1982, Argentina in 1978 and Uruguay in 1930.

The FIFA Council put the combined bid forward as the sole candidate in October 2023, and an extraordinary FIFA Congress confirmed it on 11 December 2024.

The six automatic qualifiers

All six nations that stage matches qualify without playing a qualifier. Spain arrive as defending champions as well as hosts, having beaten Argentina 1–0 after extra time in the 2026 final — the first time a reigning champion has hosted the following tournament.

The centenary matches

Each South American host stages one match, and each plays its own opening game at home:

• Montevideo, Uruguay — Estadio Centenario, built for the 1930 tournament and the venue of the first final.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina — Estadio Monumental. Argentina were the beaten finalists in 1930.
• Asunción, Paraguay — Estadio Osvaldo Domínguez Dibb, a new stadium in the city where the South American confederation has its headquarters.

Under FIFA's proposed schedule the three centenary matches are played on 8 and 9 June, with the opening matches in Morocco, Portugal and Spain following on 13 and 14 June. The full match schedule has not been published. The six teams involved in the South American matches then cross the Atlantic for the rest of their group games.

Format: 48 teams

As things stand the 2030 World Cup uses the format introduced in 2026. The 48 teams are drawn into 12 groups of four. The top two in each group go through, together with the eight best third-placed teams, to a round of 32. From there it is straight knockout: round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place match and the final. That is 72 group matches and 32 knockout matches, 104 in total, and a champion who has played eight times.

Which third-placed teams go through is decided across all twelve groups on points, then goal difference, then goals scored. Who they play in the round of 32 depends on which eight groups they come from; the simulator uses the same pairing table as the 2026 tournament.

Will it be 64 teams?

Possibly. The South American confederation proposed a one-off expansion to 64 teams for the centenary at a FIFA Council meeting in March 2025 and has pressed the case since. In July 2026 FIFA issued a brief for an independent agency to study what going from 48 to 64 teams would mean — for the competition itself, competitive balance, qualifying, player welfare and the match calendar — with the analysis due in September 2026. The presidents of the European and Asian confederations have both spoken against the idea. At the time of writing FIFA had announced no decision, and any change would need the approval of the FIFA Council.

Because it is undecided, the simulator lets you choose. Its 64-team version is an assumption, not a published format: 16 groups of four, the top two of each going straight into a round of 32, with no third-placed teams involved. That would be 96 group matches and 128 in all. The 64-team World Cup in detail: format, places and who gains.

Places by confederation

The 48 places are shared between the six confederations as they were in 2026; FIFA has not published a separate allocation for 2030. Hosts count against their own confederation's share, which leaves 42 places to be won: 40 inside the confederations and two through the inter-confederation play-off.

The squeeze is tightest in South America, where three of the six places belong to the centenary hosts and seven nations are left to chase the other three. How each confederation qualifies.

Where it will be played

The bid named twenty stadiums in seventeen cities across the three host countries, plus the three South American venues. The list has already changed: two Spanish cities have withdrawn and the Spanish federation has asked FIFA to add two others. Casablanca's new Hassan II Stadium, planned for 115,000 spectators, and the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid are the two stadiums most often named for the final, which FIFA has not yet awarded. Host cities and stadiums.

What this site does with all that

The simulator plays the whole road: every qualifying match in all six confederations, the inter-confederation play-off, the draw and the finals, with all 211 nations in the FIFA ranking. Teams are rated from that ranking and from their recent results. You can let it run, or step in and replay any single match. How the simulation works · Who wins it most often.