- Do We Know the 2026 Schedule Yet?
- When Do World Cup 2026 Tickets Go On Sale?
- What Are the Basics of Purchasing World Cup Tickets?
- Travel Packages
- How Much Do World Cup 2026 Tickets Cost?
- How Are World Cup Tickets Different Than Super Bowl Tickets?
- Some Parting Words
Do We Know the 2026 Schedule Yet?
Yes! The schedule was announced via livestream on February 04, 2024.
You can see an amazing timelapse of the schedule by host city and dates on a map we put together. Depending on your preference, you can see the timelapse via TikTok or Instagram. Honestly, this timelapse has been quite helpful for us as we try to determine what our future plans may be.
There’s a lot of excitement and after breaking the schedule down into different perspectives, we summarized the schedule in different views as well as added 9 Thoughts / Insights we gathered.
Think of this insight as what cities have the best schedule for creating a home base for the tournament during the group stages, knockout rounds, etc. Mexico’s entire group stage is at a considerable altitude, how does that play into their favor and moer.
You can also view the schedule on FIFA’s site.
When Do World Cup 2026 Tickets Go On Sale?
Latest Update: Nov 20, 2024 – check back as we will continuously update this article and the site!
Short Answer:
Using the logic and timing from previous and recent World Cups that occur in June/July:
- Best guess is to see the first Phase (see below about Phases) to be between August to October 2025. (yes, 2025)
- That said, HOSPITALITY tickets from FIFA’s official vendor, On Location, are supposedly to go on sale in “late 2024”. We announced this in our Newsletter (free to subscribe to for updates).
Long Answer:
Using the logic from other men’s World Cups, the initial “Phase 1” ticket sale will not begin until Fall 2025.
This “Phase” takes place before the World Cup Draw, and the Draw has traditionally been held in December the year before the tournament.
You may be wondering “how do you buy tickets to the World Cup before you know the teams?”
First, you need to know what is meant by “Phase 1” and that is explained below a bit as well as in our generic article about World Cup tickets.
But, back to answering the question…the schedule itself will be known by the time the initial tickets go on sale. The schedule will detail the date, time, stadium and group assignment that will play. We already know the dates and cities of matches from the schedule reveal in Feb 2024, but we haven’t seen groups and matches assigned yet.
This means that the day the tickets go for sale for the first time ever, you will be applying for a ticket without knowing which teams you will watch compete. This applies to group stages and all knockout rounds too – including the final.
For example you may be applying to watch F1 vs F3 in Los Angeles at 3pm on July 1 (note, the specifics here are made up to illustrate the point). Once the draw takes place, you’ll find out which teams are assigned F1 and F3 and who you now have tickets to see.
What Are the Basics of Purchasing World Cup Tickets?
Honestly, we wrote a generic article about buying World Cup tickets that answers most of the FAQs since 2026 is not on sale yet but we’ll address some below.
You can also read the page dedicated to Qatar 2022 tickets to get a sense on how that edition operated.
That said there are a few basics to familiarize yourself with:
FIFA Account
All tickets are officially purchased on FIFA’s website and you need an account.
You can go ahead and subscribe for updates from FIFA on their website. You can also create your FIFA ID account on FIFA’s website now. There’s always a chance FIFA adopts a new system that requires another account for 2026 tickets but you can make your own determination if you want to subscribe for updates and/or create a FIFA ID now.
Sales Phases
There are 2 Types of “Phases” and they’re known as “First Come, First Serve” and “Random Lottery“.
Random Lottery:
Typically, it kicks off a couple months before the draw as explained above and is Random Lottery. The time window of this phase is open where regardless of when you apply, you have the same chance to getting randomly allocated the tickets you requested. Fans will apply for any match or set of matches over X number of days. Once the time window expires, FIFA will go through a process to allocate those tickets to fans. You have to purchase every ticket that you are allocated or you lose out.
It is possible another Random Lottery phase will occur before the tournament begins as well.
First Come, First Serve:
This phase is what fans are most familiar with in purchasing tickets. You navigate to the FIFA Ticketing Portal, find the match you want to purchase tickets to, and if there’s availability, you pay via credit card at that time and the tickets are yours.
This typically occurs right after the World Cup Draw, a few months before the tournament starts and then again as the tournament is on-going.
Understanding Guest Ticket vs Main Applicant
The person applying for tickets is known as the “Main Applicant“.
Let’s say the “Main Applicant” purchases 2 tickets to the same match. The person that the “Main Applicant” invites is known as the “Guest“.
This is key because FIFA makes it difficult to resell match tickets on 3rd party platforms and “Guests” have essentially zero power outside of receiving and using the tickets.
To combat scalping, FIFA launches their own “Resale Platform” in which anyone can list their tickets for Resale but it is NOT a free pricing model. Tickets can only be resold for 10% markup. With FIFA using mobile, digital tickets (more below) they’ve found a way to facilitate the sharing of tickets. A guest cannot transfer a ticket and a main applicant cannot transfer any other tickets aside from the guest ticket.
It’s honestly a fairly well-executed attempt to minimize (let’s be real, it does not come close to eliminating) the open market scalping that is common in USA sporting landscape.
Using our 2 ticket example, this means I can assign the guest ticket to my sister, but there’s not an easy way I can transfer my main applicant ticket to her spouse.
3rd Party Reseller Sites
As stated above, fans may be surprised that listing tickets for resale on a 3rd Party Platform (e.g. StubHub, Ticketmaster, Viagogo, etc) violates the “Terms of Use” by FIFA.
If you want to learn more, read this article on how FIFA’s Resale Platform works and why.
Be Prepared for Mobile Tickets
Unless technology takes a wild U-Turn soon, the tickets will be accessed on a FIFA mobile app. Take a look at the 2023 and 2022 mobile app articles for an idea on how it works.
The app is fairly advanced where tickets use bluetooth to “activate” a unique scannable barcode once the ticket holder is within the stadium grounds on match day.
Screenshots of the barcode will not work for sharing.
Types of Standard Tickets
Individual Tickets – tickets purchased for a specific match.
Team Specific Tickets – tickets purchased to follow a specific team. You can typically do this for 4 or 7 (8 now?) matches.
Stadium Specific Tickets – tickets purchase to attend every match in a specific stadium.
Official Hospitality Tickets
Sold by the FIFA Hospitality arm, (the last few tournaments has been MATCH but 2026 will be On Location), these tickets are always first come, first serve and have multi-levels in their own right.
Typically, the cheapest ticket is about 10x a regular ticket cost and you get a version of food, drinks, parking, etc + a small gift (see photo below of our gift in USA vs England, Qatar 2022).
Read this article here for more information on Hospitality Packages and 2026 details.
Travel Packages
We detail a bit more regarding a couple legit vendors that provide World Cup Travel Packages.
In fact, the premier luxury travel provider (i.e. if you have a large budget), Roadtrips has already launched their 2026 World Cup offerings. You can select a package for the World Cup Final, Semifinals, Follow a Team, Visit a City or create a custom package.
Seriously – send a message if you’d like to learn more regarding this avenue and we can put you directly in touch (where you can also get a $250 food and drink credit).
Sample from Roadtrips on their 2026 Packages (again, send us a message for an introduction):
FIFA+ Collect Digital Marketplace
FIFA announced their digital FIFA+ Collect marketplace, which allows you to make digital purchases to acquire rights to purchase tickets. It is new and not an area of expertise.
It is covered in slightly more detail to (free) subscribers in our June Newsletter with additional links. We suggest doing some research in case this is an area of interest; however, our first take is that if you have this type of budget, acquiring a hospitality ticket may be another consideration.
How Much Do World Cup 2026 Tickets Cost?
There’s nothing specific out yet, but we do know that these will be broken into “Categories” based on the position of the field, not necessarily proximity to the field. A World Cup ticket option exists in 3 different Categories and then increases in price for each round of the tournament.
- Category 1 – the most expensive category and reserved for the center of the pitch.
- Category 2 – the 2nd most expensive category and reserved for the corners of the pitch.
- Category 3 – the least expensive category and reserved for behind the goal.
- Category 4 – a very small subset of seats behind the goal that are reserved for host residents, but not sure how this will work in 2026.
It is entirely possible that Category 3 can be front row behind the goal and Category 1 is the last row ad midfield.
Again, our regular column provides a handful of examples on ticket prices. You can also see our travel budget from Russia 2018. The pricing will hopefully surprise many people as FIFA does a decent job of keeping the tickets away from scalpers and costs less than what many fans pay in the States for meaningless friendlies between European teams.
The cheapest ticket in previous tournaments hovered around $70 USD or less in the past for the men. The image of this article reflects tickets in Russia 2018 – Category 3 – at $105 USD. Qatar 2022 was closer to the $70 USD range for CAT3 in the Group Stages.
And it’s wild to reflect on how we purchased tickets to the Women’s England vs Spain 2023 Final in Sydney for equivalent to $25 USD each! The affordability of the 2023 Women’s Tournament is likely an era gone forever due to the astronomical and long overdue growth in that tournament.
United 2026 Bid Proposal Details (Again, This is from the BID PROPOSAL)
You can access the official 2026 Bid Proposal on FIFA’s website and when you do so, navigate to page 490 and you will see the proposed pricing scheme. And…well…this would be quite the price increase.
That said – it is important to know this is only a Bid Proposal and constructed in 2018 so this could (and likely will) change. Many aspects of the proposal already has changed; however, it is interesting to see where the minds are at (💰).
Also, keep in mind that CAT4 is typically reserved for the residents of the host country – and at very limited supply. There’s no further information, other than the below matrix which again – came directly from the official bid proposal in 2018 that is on FIFA’s website.
Will there be a CAT4? What are the conditions for it? We will wait and see..
How Are World Cup Tickets Different Than Super Bowl Tickets?
A common from the American contingency as there are intense concerns about costs and availability.
Honestly – there’s an entire article that compares Copa 2024 to World Cups so read that article for way more details and illustrations but a very basic summary is below.
There are 4 key differences that are worth mentioning:
Ticket Sales Happen in Phases
And everyone has equal opportunity in all phases. That is, there isn’t a presale code or early access to those that will scalp the tickets (see more below) but instead, a random lottery occurs and then first in line.
Pricing is Split Into 3 to 4 Categories
We illustrate this above a bit with our chart. What may not resonate is those in the last row of the stadium are paying the same price as those in the first row and you can see that as glass half empty of half full.
We prefer half full.
Pricing Transparency
FIFA’s website is the official platform to purchase tickets and again as illustrated above, the face value of tickets is available from Day 1 and isn’t dependent on second hand markets.
FIFA Controls Resale Market
Our favorite part about the ticketing, consistent since 2006 has been availability of resale tickets on FIFA’s platform – and at face value. Can’t attend a match? Get your money back by relisting it on FIFA and once it sells, you get a refund. FIFA also instills some guardrails through technology that significantly increases the friction for resale on second-hand markets; additionally, it technically violates terms of use, and there have been cases where people were turned away for violating these terms.
Can FIFA really stop it? No, but FIFA can minimize it. So you will still see people selling second-hand tickets for thousands of dollars above face value, but you can also find resale availability on the FIFA platform.
If people have thousands of dollars to spend on tickets, read up on hospitality tickets and luxury travel packages which may be your preferred method of attending a World Cup.
Some Parting Words
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16 thoughts on “How to Buy Tickets to the 2026 World Cup”
Hello It’s me again, So I know you haven’t reveled yet but with Cristiano Ronaldo be playing in US Washington Seattle? And is there a way to get discounts on tickets? one more question, I’ve heard Messi Isn’t attending 2026 world cup is this true? I’m a big fan thanks for taking your time to reply to our questions.
Hello! Team locations will not be revealed until the draw which will likely take place in December 2025 (yes, 2025). At that point we’ll all learn the matches and cities and can start solidifying plans. Can’t answer the Messi question as only he knows the answer. And regarding seats and prices – the prices are typically broken into categories based on center, corners and behind the goal “categories”. The first row and last row of a category can be the same price. I explain a bit more here: https://www.theworldcupguide.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3719&action=edit#pricing-is-split-into-3-to-4-categories
Where are the seats based on the price?
Thanks for all the info above, I have a question: Suppose Main buy total 3 tickets, 1 for them and 2 for guests and the main can’t go to the USA because of Visa issue. Can the main resell the ticket on fifa resale platform? also would like to know if there will be upgrade in the Visa system(i.e making the process fast),
Good questions! In a typical tournament (b/c FIFA can always change their stance) – if the main applicant can no longer attend, the main applicant cannot put their ticket up for resale on the resale platform. All the tickets are linked to that persons account and they can’t transfer that information to someone else. You can always update the owner of the guest tickets (until the guest “accepts” the ticket – which doesn’t happen until weeks before it starts) but not the main applicant.
Regarding the visa – no news yet. FIFA wants the tournament to be seen as a success but has 3 different governments to work with on these regulations. Given the recent tournaments, I would assume a World Cup specific visa for ticket holders would be in the conversations but nothing concrete from FIFA yet.
Very informative post, thank you. One question: Will “main applicants” be able to re-assign “guest applicant” tickets, once they are allocated? And, could one main applicant (A) who gets tickets, reassign them to another main applicant (B) who doesn’t? For the 2014 World Cup, me and my family were Boy Scouts, I was main applicant and my wife and kids were three guests. When we actually told other World Cup attendees about that, they sort of chuckled–most of them had “placeholder” applicants who never intended to attend, they just multiplied their chances.
Hi Bruce! Thanks!
Yes. A main applicant can reassign guests. Once the tournament is closed, in Qatar and Australia, it was just a few weeks before tournament started – the tickets are allocated. So the main receives them and sends to guests. Once sent and received by guest, I believe the guest would have to return the ticket back. But again, you can’t actually gift someone the ticket til almost when matches start anyways. You don’t have to assign the guests until later anyways.
A main applicant cannot technically assign/allocate to another main. So if you buy one ticket, there’s no way to assign a new person a ticket. I saw people in this situation letting the “new main” applicant log into the mobile app with the username and password.
I did not understand your “B” follow up.
This is spoken from last two years and FIFA can always tweak it for 2026.
Hope this helps!
In which phase are the team specific tickets released?
Hi! Thanks for the message. I believe it is during Phase 1, before the draw.
Very useful post, thank you for taking the time to write it out.
Thanks for reading and the comments! Makes it worthwhile
Do matches ever sell out during the random lottery phase? Or does FIFA always reserve some tickets exclusively for the first come, first serve phase of sales?
Hi Mike! Great question – while no one ever really knows FIFA’s plans with allocation, there’s always tickets left in reserve for the future allocation rounds and matches. That said, some matches will sell out (e.g. Final) and not be available until latter stages of the tournament. Once the tournament starts, we always see an influx of tickets appear hours before kickoff, sometimes a day or so before. In fact, we saw Argentina vs France final in Qatar reappear on the FIFA site the day of the match. Heads up – the process of applying for tickets on the site will be one of the most frustrating experiences. 🙂 You’ll see what we mean but there’s always hope. The best thing FIFA does is reimburse fans that cannot attend matches by utilizing a “resale” portal. That means fans can purchase previously sold tickets on the FIFA site, officially, without a price increase. They also do a decent job in minimizing the secondhand market to encourage people to use the “resale portal”.
Very informative. Please share updates.
Thanks, Rick! We’ll certainly be updating as we learn more! Exciting to have a firm schedule! We’ll be posting some thoughts and analysis on the schedule in the coming days, too.
This is very informative and helpful.
Thank you