The 2027 World Championship will take place in Germany. The hosts as well as the defending title holders, Denmark, are directly qualified. Europe has a further 14 places allocated for the global event.
With four of those places decided with the final ranking at the EHF EURO 2026 and both Germany and Denmark among the semi-finalists, the other two EURO semi-finalists, Croatia and Iceland, as well as the sides in the 5/6 placement match, Sweden and Portugal, have booked their places at the World Championship.
The remaining European berths at the World Championship are determined through the three-stage qualification, which began with phase 1 in late October and early November.
Kosovo, Latvia and Türkiye progressed from phase 1, and will be among the sides contesting phase 2 in March 2026. Joining those three teams in phase 2 are the national teams that ranked fourth in their groups at the EHF EURO 2026: Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. In addition, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia, Lithuania, Belgium, Finland and Israel join the race in phase 2, with their qualification for this stage based on the current national team ranking. The draw for the two-leg ties forming phase 2 took place in November.
The eight winners of the phase 2 ties will qualify for phase 3, where the teams ranked seventh to 18th at the Men’s EHF EURO 2026 await. The EHF EURO 2026 teams ranked seventh to 16th will form pot 1, while pot 2 will comprise the squads positioned 17th and 18th at the EURO as well as those progressed from the earlier qualification phases
Pots for 2027 Men's World Championship European qualification phase 3 draw:
- Pot 1: France, Slovenia, Norway, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia, Netherlands and Austria
- Pot 2: Czechia, Italy and the winners of the phase 2 ties — Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Kosovo, Georgia vs Israel, Ukraine vs Slovakia, Serbia vs Lithuania, Poland vs Latvia, Türkiye vs Romania, Greece vs Belgium, Finland vs Montenegro
The procedure will involve one team from pot 1 being drawn against one team from pot 2. The first team drawn will have the home right in the first leg of the ties, which will be played on 13–14 and 16–17 May 2026. The aggregate winners will qualify for the World Championship, which will take place in January 2027.
