The first step towards earning a coveted spot at the AFC U20 Asian Cup China 2027™ will be taken with the Qualifiers Draw on May 28 (Thursday) at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A cast of 44 teams are set to participate in the Qualifiers, which will take place for the 23rd occasion since first being implemented for the 1980 edition of the tournament.

To be staged between August 31 and September 6, 2026 in a centralised league system, these Qualifiers will feature the implementation of a new format as part of key reforms to the AFC’s youth competitions that were ratified earlier this year.

Designed to ensure more meaningful matches and opportunities for teams to compete against opponents of similar technical competency, a two-phase system featuring a promotion and relegation mechanism will be introduced.

In the Qualification Phase, 32 teams are divided into eight groups of four, with the group winners and the seven best second-placed teams advancing to the 43rd edition of the AFC U20 Asian Cup™. At the same time, the bottom team of each group will be relegated to the Development Phase of the subsequent edition.

For the Development Phase in the upcoming Qualifiers, 12 teams are divided into three groups of four, with the three group winners and the three second-placed teams of each group to be promoted to the Qualification Phase of the next edition.

Seeding for the teams are based on the three most recent editions and the number of teams entering the competition. The pot allocations for each phase, with rankings indicated in brackets, are as below:

Qualification Phase
Pot 1: Australia (1), Korea Republic (2) Japan (3), Saudi Arabia (4), Uzbekistan (5), Iraq (6), Islamic Republic of Iran (7), Jordan (9)
Pot 2: Qatar (10), Indonesia (11), Syria (12), Thailand (13), Vietnam (14), Yemen (15), Kyrgyz Republic (16), Tajikistan (17)
Pot 3: Oman (18), United Arab Emirates (19), India (20), DPR Korea (21), Cambodia (22), Bahrain (23), Malaysia (24), Philippines (25)
Pot 4: Bangladesh (26), Turkmenistan (27), Kuwait (28), Lebanon (29), Palestine (30), Laos (31), Hong Kong, China (32), Afghanistan (33)

Development Phase
Pot 1: Chinese Taipei (34), Mongolia (35), Myanmar (36)
Pot 2: Singapore (37), Guam (38), Maldives (39)
Pot 3: Nepal (40), Brunei Darussalam (41), Bhutan (42)
Pot 4: Macau (43), Sri Lanka (44), Northern Mariana Islands (45)

Host Associations in each phase have been identified and will be separately allocated to an additional Hosts Pot at the beginning of the draw to ensure they are drawn into different groups as below, with the seeding in brackets:

Qualification Phase
Hosts Pot: Uzbekistan (1), Qatar (2), Thailand (2), Vietnam (2), Kyrgyz Republic (2), Cambodia (3), Bahrain (3), Laos (4)

Development Phase
Hosts Pot: Mongolia (1), Myanmar (1), Bhutan (3)