Rugby World Cup qualification

The first Rugby World Cup, the tournament of 1987 held no qualifying tournament. Instead, all the then members of the International Rugby Board (then, IFRB) were automatically included in the competition. These members accounted for seven of the 16 available positions. The remaining positions were filled by invitation.

The next tournament, the 1991 Rugby World Cup implemented a qualifying process. Eight of the 16 available positions were filled by nations automatically, however, the remaining positions would be determined by a 25 nation qualifying tournament. The following tournament, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, increased the qualifying tournament to 43 nations. In addition to the eight previous quarterfinalists, hosts South Africa were granted automatic entry.

The approach changed again for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, as only the hosts and the defending champions, the runners-up, the third place play-off winners from the 1995 cup were to gain automatic entry, as opposed to the elite eight nations. The 1999 world cup also saw the introduction of a repechage, a second chance for teams that had finished runners-up in each qualifying zone. Again, the number of nations participating in the qualifying events increased, from 43 to 63.

81 teams entered qualifying for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The eight quarter-finalists from the previous world cup gained automatic qualification with another twelve berths open to qualifiers. Teams from five continents, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe and the Americas gained entry to the competition. Qualification came through a mixture of round robin tournaments, knockout and repechage.

A similar mixture of round robin tournaments, knockout and repechage was used for the qualification for the 2007 Rugby World Cup involving 86 teams, which together with the 8 teams which have qualified automatically brought to 94 the total number of teams participating in the 2007 tournament.

In addition to the eight quarterfinalists at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the four teams finishing in third place in their respective pools qualified automatically for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Various existing regional tournaments were incorporated into the qualification process for the remaining eight berths. Including teams that failed to qualify for official qualifying tournaments, 88 teams participated in the qualification process, bringing the total number of teams participating in the 2011 tournament to 100.

Number of teams entering qualification (including automatic qualifiers)

Continental zone	1987	1991	1995	1999	2003	2007	2011	2015	2019	2023
Total berths in the World Cup	16	16	16	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Africa	1	4	12	11	13	15	15	14	15	14
Americas	3	3	7	12	18	19	19	19	21	7
Asia	1	7	8	8	11	13	11	17	12	4
Oceania	4		5	8	11	11	9	9	7	10
Europe	7	19	24	32	36	36	37	37	38	12
Total entrants	161	33	56	71	89	94	91	96	93	47

• ¹ There was no qualifying process to the 1987 World Cup. The at the time eight IRFB members (minus South Africa boycotted because of apartheid) were joined by nine invited nations.

berths allocated by continent (not including automatic qualifiers)

Continental zone	1987	1991	1995	1999	2003	2007	2011	2015	2019	2023
Total berths in the World Cup	16	16	16	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Africa	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Americas	0	3	1	3+R3	2+R	3	2	2+R	2+R	2
Asia	0	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0
Oceania	0		1	3+R	2+R	2+R	1	1	2+P4	1+P4
Europe	0	2	3	6	4	3+R	2+R	2	1	2+R
Total excluding automatic qualifiers	02	8	7	16	12	12	8	8	8	8

• ² There was no qualifying process to the 1987 World Cup; all teams were invited, and, therefore, automatically qualified.
• ³ A+R indicates that one of the teams of this continent qualified to the World Cup through the repechage (called Final Qualification Tournament for the 2023 Rugby World Cup).
• ⁴ A+P indicates that one of the teams of this continent qualified to the World Cup through the 2019 Rugby World Cup – play-off qualifications or through the 2023 Rugby World Cup – Asia/Pacific play-off.

World Cup	Africa	Americas	Asia	Europe	Oceania	Total
1991	Ivory Coast  Morocco  Tunisia  Zimbabwe	Argentina  Canada  United States	Japan  South Korea	Belgium  Czechoslovakia  Denmark  Israel  Italy  Netherlands  Poland  Portugal  Romania  Spain  Sweden   Switzerland  West Germany  Yugoslavia	Samoa  Tonga	25
1995	Kenya  Namibia	Bermuda  Chile  Paraguay  Uruguay	Arabian Gulf4  Hong Kong  Malaysia  Singapore  Sri Lanka  Taiwan  Thailand	Andorra  Czech Republic5  Georgia  Germany6  Hungary  Latvia  Lithuania  Luxembourg  Russia  Wales	Fiji	24
1999	Botswana  Zambia	Bahamas  Barbados  Brazil  Guyana7  Trinidad and Tobago	Chinese Taipei8	Austria  Bulgaria  Croatia  England  Ireland  Moldova  Norway  Scotland  Ukraine  FR Yugoslavia9	Australia  Cook Islands  Papua New Guinea  Tahiti	22
2003	Cameroon  Madagascar  Eswatini  Uganda	Cayman Islands  Colombia  Jamaica  Peru  Saint Lucia  Venezuela	Kazakhstan	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Malta  Monaco  Slovenia	Niue  Solomon Islands  Vanuatu	18
2007	Nigeria  Senegal	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Guam	Finland  Serbia10	none	6
2011	none	Mexico	India  Pakistan	Armenia  Greece	none	5
2015	Mauritius	none	China  Indonesia  Iran  Philippines  United Arab Emirates11	Cyprus12	none	7
2019	none	Ecuador  Guatemala	Uzbekistan	Estonia	none	4
2023	Algeria  Burkina Faso  Burundi  Ghana	none	none	none	none	4
Total	19	22	20	44	10	115

Teams marked in italics had appeared in a previous world cup (by invitation in 1987 and automatically thereafter). France, New Zealand, and South Africa have never needed to take part in the qualifying tournaments, having been invited to their first tournament and always qualifying automatically thereafter.

• ⁴ Took part in the African qualifying tournament.
• ⁵ First appearance as Czech Republic; previous appearance as Czechoslovakia.
• ⁶ First appearance as Germany; previous appearance as West Germany.
• ⁷ Withdrew prior to the competition. Actually took part in the 2003 qualifying tournament.
• ⁸ First appearance as Chinese Taipei; previous appearance as Taiwan.
• ⁹ First appearance as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; previous appearances as Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
• ¹⁰ First appearance as Serbia; previous appearances as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
• ¹¹ First appearance as United Arab Emirates. Previously competed as part of Arabian Gulf
• ¹² Although Cyprus were originally included in the qualifying process, they were later removed as they were not full member of the IRB.

The repechage, a second chance for teams that had finished runners-up in each qualifying zone, has been a feature of qualifying since it was introduced during qualifying for the 1999 Rugby World Cup. The following table shows which teams have participated in the repechage – both the teams that have qualified via the repechage, and the teams that have failed to qualify via the repechage.

Repechage results by country

RWC Qualifying	Qualified through repechage	Score	Eliminated at final stage of repechage	Eliminated at preliminary stage of repechage
1999	Tonga  Uruguay	140–41* 36–24*	South Korea  Morocco	Georgia  Portugal  Netherlands
2003	Tonga  United States	194–0* 120–26*	South Korea  Spain	Tunisia
2007	Tonga  Portugal	85–3 24–23*	South Korea  Uruguay	Morocco
2011	Romania	60–33*	Uruguay	Tunisia  Kazakhstan
2015	Uruguay	57–49*	Russia	Zimbabwe  Hong Kong
2019	Canada	round robin	Germany  Hong Kong  Kenya	Cook Islands
2023	Portugal	round robin	United States  Hong Kong  Kenya	–

Note: All scores marked with an asterisk (*) are aggregate scores over two legs.

• National team appearances in the Rugby World Cup

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Qualification for the Rugby World Cup.

• Rugby World Cup official website