2026 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship

The 2026 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship will be the 17th edition of the UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship, the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the women's under-17 national teams of Europe. Northern Ireland will be hosting the tournament.^[1] A total of eight teams will be playing in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2009 eligible to participate.

In the 2025 final, the Netherlands won their first title by defeating Norway 2–1, but are unable to defend their title as they did not qualify.

This tournament will also act as UEFA's qualifier for the 2026 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Morocco, with top five teams qualifying as the UEFA representatives.^[2]

50 (out of 55) UEFA nations entered the qualifying competition, with the hosts Northern Ireland also competing despite already qualifying automatically, and seven teams qualified for the final tournament at the end of round 2 to join the hosts.

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the semi-finals.

The ranking of teams in the group stage is determined as follows:

1. Points obtained in all group matches;
2. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
5. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
6. Goal difference in all group matches;
7. Goals scored in all group matches;
8. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
9. Disciplinary points
   • Yellow card: −1 point;
   • Indirect red card (second yellow card): −3 points;
   • Direct red card: −3 points;
10. UEFA coefficient for the qualifying round draw;
11. Drawing of lots.

The two 3rd placed teams in each pool will compete, with the winner qualifying for the 2026 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.

In the knockout stage, a penalty shoot-out would be used to decide the winner if necessary (no extra time would be played).^[3]

• UEFA's Website with more information