2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

Qualification for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations began on 23 March 2026. A total of 28 teams will qualify to play in the final tournament, including automatically qualified hosts Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Source: Wikipedia

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2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

Entrants

2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

All CAF member associations are eligible to enter the competition. The seeding was based on the FIFA World Ranking from 19 November 2025.

The qualifiers group stage draw, originally scheduled for 19 December 2025, was postponed to 13 January 2026.

Teams ranked 1st to 42nd received a bye to the qualifying group stage, while the teams ranked 43rd to 54th have to participate in the preliminary round.

Schedule

2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

The schedule of the qualifying tournament is as follows.

<table><thead><tr><th>Round</th><th>Matchday</th><th>Dates</th><th>Matches</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Preliminary round</td><td>First leg</td><td>25–31 March 2026</td><td>Team 1 vs. Team 2</td></tr><tr><td>Second leg</td><td>25–31 March 2026</td><td>Team 2 vs. Team 1</td></tr><tr><td>Group stage</td><td>Matchday 1</td><td>21 September – 6 October 2026</td><td>Team 1 vs. Team 2, Team 3 vs. Team 4</td></tr><tr><td>Matchday 2</td><td>Team 2 vs. Team 3, Team 4 vs. Team 1</td></tr><tr><td>Matchday 3</td><td>Team 1 vs. Team 3, Team 2 vs. Team 4</td></tr><tr><td>Matchday 4</td><td>Team 3 vs. Team 1, Team 4 vs. Team 2</td></tr><tr><td>Matchday 5</td><td>9–17 November 2026</td><td>Team 2 vs. Team 1, Team 4 vs. Team 3</td></tr><tr><td>Matchday 6</td><td>Team 3 vs. Team 2, Team 1 vs. Team 4</td></tr></tbody></table>

Preliminary round

2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

The twelve teams were split into six ties which were played in home-and-away two-legged format.

<table><thead><tr><th>Team 1</th><th>Agg. Tooltip Aggregate score</th><th>Team 2</th><th>1st leg</th><th>2nd leg</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Djibouti </td><td>1–4</td><td> South Sudan</td><td>0–4</td><td>1–0</td></tr><tr><td>Chad </td><td>0–8</td><td> Burundi</td><td>0–4</td><td>0–4</td></tr><tr><td>Somalia </td><td>0–0 (4–2 p)</td><td> Mauritius</td><td>0–0</td><td>0–0</td></tr><tr><td>Seychelles </td><td>1–2</td><td> Lesotho</td><td>0–0</td><td>1–2</td></tr><tr><td>Eritrea </td><td>4–1</td><td> Eswatini</td><td>2–0</td><td>2–1</td></tr><tr><td>São Tomé and Príncipe </td><td>0–4</td><td> Ethiopia</td><td>0–3</td><td>0–1</td></tr></tbody></table>

Goalscorers

2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

There have been 25 goals scored in 12 matches, for an average of 2.08 goals per match.