The 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations qualification is a women's football competition that will determine the 11 teams joining the automatically qualified host Morocco in the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations final tournament.[1]
Format
The African qualifiers are set to commence in February 2025 and will feature two rounds of competition. In the first round, the 32 teams ranked 7th and below will play home-and-away two-legged ties. The 16 winners will advance to the second round, where they will be joined by the 6 teams that received a bye. The winners of the 11 second round home-and-away ties will qualify for the final tournament in Morocco.
All 53 CAF national teams were eligible to enter the competition; however, excluding Morocco, who qualified automatically as hosts of the final tournament, 38 teams registered for the qualifying tournament. The six highest-ranked teams based on FIFA rankings received a bye to the second round. In the first round, the teams are split into 16 higher-ranked and 16 less-ranked.[3]
The 38 teams were allocated into six pots based on their FIFA Ranking (three pots of the highest-ranked teams and three of the 16 lower-ranked teams), as well as regional and geographical considerations, with neighboring zones paired together where possible according to the number of teams. The seedings, pots, and draw procedure were confirmed by CAF on 12 December 2024.[3][4]
