2026 FIFA World Cup Ticket Guide

by Charles Polanski… last update April 16th, 2025

LATEST NEWS:
July 15th, 2025: FIFA has announced the “first draw application window will open on Wednesday,” September 10th, 2025. More details below on what this means for all important FIFA ticket dates and the World Cup Draw (teams get place into groups and stadiums). The draw will now be in December, probably on a Friday, my guess being December 5th. (source: https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/ticket-launch-september-2025)
But another page claims we are entering a draw to earn a time slot to login and purchase tickets. (source: https://gpcustomersupportfwc2026.tickets.fifa.com/hc/en-gb/articles/28803794672669-2-When-will-I-have-the-first-opportunity-to-purchase-FIFA-World-Cup-26-tickets). This would be different from doing a random draw for tickets and then finding out later which tickets you got.

July 13th, 2025: Single match hospitality tickets are now available for most matches in the first four rounds except for the host nation teams. The host nation 4-match plans, 2-match plans, and 8-match plans are no longer available. They might become available later on.

April 16th, 2025: FIFA Hospitality now offering a 2-match series where one match must be on a weekday and no host nation’s involved. The best thing about the brochure are the maps and the ticket prices: https://fifa.vipfanportal.com/bookmarks/preview.2-match.offering.7081. Hospitality starting at $1,225.

April 3rd, 2025: FIFA Collect has begun offering knockout match Right-to-Buy tickets (Matches 73-104). Look at the options here: https://collect.fifa.com/marketplace?tags=right-to-buy

April 3rd, 2025: If you buy a Super Ticket Pack of (20) 2025 Club World Cup matches, you earn a RTB a ticket to the final match of the 2026 World Cup. If you buy a Ticket Pack of (2)-(3) 2025 Club World Cup matches, you earn a RTB to a 2026 World Cup match: https://inside.fifa.com/organisation/media-releases/ticket-packages-club-world-cup-2025-guaranteed-access-world-cup-26

I’ve put this together to help friends and family get tickets to the USA Soccer Team’s matches at the 2026 FIFA World Cup…and tickets to other matches. Feel free to share this with others (but the more you share, the less secret this becomes and the harder for you to get tickets! That was my dilemma, as well!) I’ve attended the 1994, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 World Cups and have learned quite a bit over those years. (I also went to the 2023 Women’s World Cup, but tickets were easy and cheap down under).

IMPORTANT: FIFA has released very little official information about World Cup tickets. I’ll keep the page updated as I learn more.

QUICK SUMMARY OF MAIN WAYS TO GET 2026 World Cup tickets:

  1. FIFA Hospitality Tickets
    • EXPENSIVE but GUARANTEED way to get tickets.
  2. National Soccer Federation Tickets
    • FIFA gives a small percentage of tickets to the US Soccer Federation and other National Federations for their matches.
    • US Soccer tickets will be hard to get and you’ll likely enter a hard-to-win lottery.
  3. FIFA
    • The first draw application window opens Wednesday, September 10th, 2025. This might mean all of Phase 1 has started as with previous World Cups. Based off the 2022 World Cup timeline, that would mean the following:
      • Phase 1 could last from Sep. 10 to Nov. 18. (10 weeks)
      • You may have from Sep. 10-30 to submit your application and know its results between Oct. 1 to Nov. 9.
      • The First-Come First-Served (FCFS) part of Phase 1 may then run between Nov. 10-18 or all the way up to 3 days before the draw, perhaps Dec. 2.
    • Sales Phase 2 may now be opening from a week after Phase 1 ends.
      • The Phase 2 random draw (lottery) phase could run from Nov. 25-Dec. 18, 2025.
      • The Phase 2 First-Come First-Served (FCFS) part of Phase 2 could run from Feb. 21-April 4, 2026.
    • They’ll all remaining eventually make tickets available first-come-first-served. This Last-Minute Sales Phase could run from May 5 to July 19, 2026 (day of the Final).
  4. FIFA Collect
    • You can buy packs of digital FIFA cards that can lead to a RTB (Right-To-Buy) 2 tickets to a particular World Cup match.
    • You can also buy someone else’s RTB that they’ve earned.
    • Expensive and unclear what tickets you can choose from for the match you have a right to.
  5. Resale
    • FIFA has started an official resale platform for the most recent World Cups where you can buy and sell tickets for face-price or lower.
    • Although not “legal,” scalpers will still scalp tickets online and in-person and no stadium has ever checked the name on the ticket matches the name of the attendee. This includes places like StubHub.

DETAILED LOOK AT MAIN WAYS TO GET 2026 World Cup tickets:

  1. A great guide from the famous Eagleman. He’s been to every World Cup since 1994, and nearly every US Soccer match (at least he’s always there in the stands when I watch in person or at home): https://www.eaglemansoccer.com/tickets-1
  2. FIFA Hospitality Tickets via On Location
    • We have official information on these. People that paid a $500 refundable deposit are getting offered a first crack at tickets since late January on. They have 40,000 people who did the deposits to reach out to. You can register your interest (for free) and they’ll eventually get to you (or they’ll setup the website where you can buy first-come-first-served later, not sure when): https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/hospitality-register-interest
    • Hospitality comes with free food, drinks, and alcohol in a special area accessible before and after the match (usually for 2 hours each way). Most matches also open up this area during half time. Suites and above always have food and drink available nearby.
    • Currently, you can only order singe match, 4-match follow-your team, 4-match group stage, or venue bundles of hospitality tickets.
      • The 4-match group stage bundle requires two to be weekday matches.
      • They have 4-match bundles where you can follow the team of your choice. This gets you the tickets to a team’s 3 group-stage matches and their round-of-32 match, if they advance. If they don’t advance, you go to the winner of their group’s round-of-32 match.
        • They have most teams but not the most popular including: Mexico, USA, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.
        • The single matches don’t include any host country matches and only include the first 4 rounds, for now.
    • Here is the brochure for more details.
    • If you were to buy, you pay first 3rd up front, second 3rd in the summer, and final 3rd in early 2026.
    • Later on you’ll be able to buy tickets to all individual matches. Hospitality tickets rarely sell out early on but very popular matches can get sold out even with hospitality.
  3. National Soccer Federation Tickets
    • FIFA gives a small percentage of tickets to the US Soccer Federation and other National Federations for their matches.
    • Go here to join at any level, including a free membership: https://www.ussoccer.com/insiders
    • US Soccer tickets will be hard to get and you’ll likely enter a hard-to-win lottery.
    • The higher/more-expensive your membership tier is with US Soccer, the better your chance to win tickets to the lottery.
    • In the past, the lottery gave you the right to buy up to 6 tickets, but this time it will likely only be 2 tickets (or at most, maybe 4), but US Soccer is still awaiting word from FIFA on how many tickets FIFA is giving them.
    • They will cost the same as retail FIFA tickets but we’re still awaiting word on those.
    • The Captains Circle is highly recommended as a way to boost your chances of getting tickets. And you probably only get 2 tickets per account, if you win the lottery. I’d recommend Supporters Circle at a bare minimum.
    • Standard Tier List (over 500,000 total members across various tiers)
      • Free
      • Premium ($45/yr)
      • Premium Family ($85/yr)
      • VIP Insider ($185/yr).
    • Circle Insider Tier List
      • Supporters Circle ($500/yr) 100% tax deductible. About 1,000 members and growing daily.
      • Captains Circle ($1,000/yr) $798 tax deductible. About 500 members.
      • Keepers Circle (TBD but between Captains and Coaches). No members yet. Could be the perfect sweet spot, once they announce it.
      • Coaches Circle ($5,000/yr) $4,548 tax deductible. A “couple hundred” members.
      • President Circle ($10,000/yr) $9,348 tax deductible. 50 members.
    • This is how ticket disbursement was done in 2022. Not sure how things will be tweaked in 2026, but I have been told directly by US Soccer that the higher your membership, the better your chance. I was in Group A and still didn’t win the lottery.
  4. FIFA
    • Register your interest to keep updated here: http://fifa.com/tickets
    • The first draw application window opens Wednesday, September 10th, 2025. This might mean all of Phase 1 has started as with previous World Cups. Based off the 2022 World Cup timeline (source: https://www.fifa.com/en/articles/sales-phases-en) combined with the draw happening some time in December, that would mean the following:
      • There could be different options available. Single matches should be an option, but they might also have venue series and team series tickets. Team series tickets in the past have offered options of the first 3 matches on up to the final as a full 7 match option. They are known as TST-3, TST-4, TST-5, TST-6, and TST-7. You get to watch all your teams guaranteed group stage matches and any of their knockout stage matches. But if they get knocked out, you still get to go to the match of the team that knocked them out and so on. If they get knocked out in the group stage, you watch the winner of the group’s knockout matches (or whomever knocks them out until your TST is done).
      • You may have from Sep. 10-30 to submit your application for tickets for this random draw. The results of your application will then be made known between Oct. 1 to Nov. 9.
      • The First-Come First-Served (FCFS) part of Phase 1 may then run between Nov. 10-18 or up to 3 days before the draw, perhaps Dec. 2. This is where any tickets made available during the random draw but not claimed and paid for by Nov. 9 can be bought. You may even know where your exact seat will be when you add it to your shopping cart. They usually don’t make all tickets available in this phase.
        • They’ll likely hold several random draw (aka lottery) phases you can enter.
        • It can be hard to win a lottery ticket to popular matches, especially for knockout matches.
      • Sales Phase 2 may now be opening 4 days after the draw, so perhaps Dec. 9, 16, or 23.
        • The random draw (lottery) phase could run from Dec. 9/16/23-Dec. 22/29, 2025/Jan. 5, 2026.
        • The First-Come First-Served (FCFS) part of Phase 2 could run from Feb. 25/Mar.4/11-April 8/15/22, 2026.
        • They’ll eventually make tickets available first-come-first-served. This Last-Minute Sales Phase could run from April 10 to July 19, 2026 (day of the Final). Qatar had this phase open 8 weeks and 6 days before the opener.
    • This will be the cheapest option but the prices are not certain, yet. Travel Futbol Fan’s best guess are:
      • Category 1 is best down to Category 4. “Special” may be Hospitality and similar.
      • Bid Book are the prices speculated by the official 2026 World Cup Bid Book from 2018 that the USA, Mexico, and Canada submitted with their World Cup bid. But we’ve experienced COVID and higher than predicted inflation since their estimates!
      • Quinto Partido and GQ are two magazines that speculated. The final section is TFF’s predictions.
      • My best guess at the prices are currently:
        • Group Stage
          • Category 1 (Cat1): $800
          • Cat2: $600
          • Cat3: $320
          • Cat4: $60
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $2,000
        • Opening Matches (Mexico is the first match but the USA, and Canada “Opening matches” might also have this premium)
          • Cat1: $1,600
          • Cat2: $1,200
          • Cat3: $600
          • Cat4: $150
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $2,500
        • Round of 32
          • Cat1: $1,000
          • Cat2: $750
          • Cat3: $480
          • Cat4: $90
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $3,000
        • Round of 16
          • Cat1: $1,400
          • Cat2: $1,000
          • Cat3: $700
          • Cat4: $130
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $4,500
        • Quarterfinals
          • Cat1: $2,000
          • Cat2: $1,500
          • Cat3: $1,050
          • Cat4: $200
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $7,000
        • Semifinals
          • Cat1: $3,000
          • Cat2: $2,250
          • Cat3: $1,600
          • Cat4: $300
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $
        • Third-place Match
          • Cat1: $1,000
          • Cat2: $750
          • Cat3: $480
          • Cat4: $90
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $3,000
        • Final
          • Cat1: $5,000
          • Cat2: $3,500
          • Cat3: $2,500
          • Cat4: $450
          • Hospitality/Special Cheapest: $12,000
    • Check the Eagleman link for when and what the different phases might be until we hear the real info from FIFA.
  5. FIFA Collect
  6. Resale
    • Usually, FIFA says you can’t resell your tickets unless you do so on their own resale platform, and you can’t resell for more than you paid to FIFA. But they might allow for a free market on a platform like Ticketmaster. That is what has happened for the 2025 Club World Cup in the USA. See those tickets as reference: https://www.ticketmaster.com/fifa-club-world-cup-tickets/artist/2370909
    • Although not “legal” scalpers will still scalp tickets online and in-person. They put names on tickets but I’ve never seen them check that you match the name on a ticket at any World Cup match, even the final matches I attended in 2010, 2018, 2022, and 2023.