WASHINGTON, DC – FIFA has confirmed the details for the Final Draw of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a key moment that will reveal the group-stage matchups for the expanded 48-team tournament. For Curaçao—qualifying for the first time ever and standing as the smallest nation in history to reach a men’s World Cup—the draw represents a landmark moment in national sports history.
The draw will take place on Friday, 5 December 2025 at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, which is 13:00 in Curaçao, and will be held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
To organize the draw, FIFA places all teams into four pots based on the FIFA world rankings of November 2025. The three host nations—Mexico, Canada and the United States—are automatically assigned to Pot 1. Curaçao has been placed in Pot 4, which includes lower-ranked qualified teams and the winners of the global and European play-off paths.
During the draw, one team from each pot is assigned to each of the 12 groups. This ensures that every group contains one Pot 1 team, one from Pot 2, one from Pot 3, and one from Pot 4. Confederation rules prevent two teams from the same region from being placed in the same group, except for Europe, which may have up to two teams per group. Under this rule, Curaçao cannot be drawn with another CONCACAF team in the group stage.
The order of the ceremony is fixed. The three hosts are placed first in predetermined groups. The remaining Pot 1 teams are drawn next, followed by Pots 2, 3 and 4. When a team is drawn, it is automatically assigned to a specific group position, which determines its match schedule.
For Curaçao, the draw will reveal its opponents on the world stage for the first time. As a Pot 4 team, Curaçao is guaranteed to face a top-ranked national team from Pot 1, along with additional opponents from different continents. Once the draw concludes, Curaçao will know its group makeup, its match dates, and the path it must attempt to follow in its historic World Cup debut.