by Charles Polanski
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:
- FIFA Hospitality Tickets
- EXPENSIVE but GUARANTEED way to get tickets.
- 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.
- FIFA
- They’ll likely hold several lottery phases you can enter.
- It can be hard to win a lottery ticket to popular matches, especially for knockout matches.
- They’ll eventually make tickets available first-come-first-served.
- They’ll likely hold several lottery phases you can enter.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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
- 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 4-match follow-your team, 4-match group stage, 8-match, or venue bundles of hospitality tickets.
- The 8-match bundle is the only way to get tickets to any knockout stage match, including the FINAL. But 4 of the eight matches have to be group stage and can’t include the US Team, and maybe 2-4 have to be weekday matches.
- 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.
- The Pavilion USA Follow My Team Standard bundle costs $9,595
- The Pavilion USA Follow My Team Standard+ bundle costs $10,370.
- 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 individual matches. Hospitality tickets rarely sell out early on but very popular matches can get sold out even with hospitality.
- 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.
- FIFA
- Register your interest to keep updated here: http://fifa.com/tickets
- The first ticket phases likely won’t start until November or December 2025.
- They’ll likely hold several lottery phases you can enter.
- It can be hard to win a lottery ticket to popular matches, especially for knockout matches.
- They’ll eventually make tickets available first-come-first-served.
- 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!
- See the Bid Book here: https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/3c077448dcd5c0ab/original/w3yjeu7dadt5erw26wmu-pdf.pdf
- 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
- Group Stage
- Check the Eagleman link for when and what the different phases might be until we hear the real info from FIFA.
- 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.
- Find RTBs to nearly every group stage match here: https://collect.fifa.com/marketplace?tags=right-to-buy
- Find RTBs for the USA’s opening match at SoFi here: https://collect.fifa.com/marketplace/FT_G_M02
- 10 RTBs ranging from $1,995 to $25K!
- Find FIFA digital cards where you can attempt to earn an RTB from here: https://collect.fifa.com/
- Match 32 for USA in Seattle on 6/19/26 (4 RTBs currently for sale): $660, $749, $889, and $890.
- Match 59 for USA at SoFi in LA (5 RTBs): $776, $777, $797, $799, and $939.
- No knockout matches have been made available here, yet. But it appears FIFA is making a ton of money through this and will extend it to knockout games.
- These are expensive and it’s unclear what tickets you can choose from.
- 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.
