Several teams have already qualified for the World Championship: Germany (Group A, Munich) and Denmark (Group G, Kiel) were seeded prior to the start of ticket sales. In addition to Germany, Croatia (Group C) will compete in the preliminary round in Munich. Sweden (Group E) will travel to Kiel as the second team in that venue. Magdeburg will host the teams that finished fourth and fifth at the EHF EURO 2026: Iceland (Group H) and Portugal (Group F). Switzerland (Group B) and France (Group D) are currently designated for Stuttgart but still need to qualify for the tournament. Should they fail to do so, their respective qualification opponents Italy (opponent of Switzerland) and the Czech Republic (opponent of France) will take their places.

Across six consecutive matchdays, the participants of the main round and the President’s Cup will be determined. While the teams ranked 25th to 32nd will compete in Magdeburg, the tournament will continue for the remaining 24 teams from 20 January onwards in Hanover’s ZAG Arena (10,000 capacity) and Cologne’s LANXESS arena (19,250). Each city will host two main round groups. The four group winners and runners-up will then advance to the quarter-finals – and from the start of the knockout stage on 26 January, all matches will be played exclusively in Cologne.

The semi-finals are scheduled for 29 January, and 20 years after Germany secured their third and most recent world title with a final victory over Poland, the medals will once again be decided in Cologne on 31 January 2027.

Following the preliminary round, the top three teams from each group will progress to the main round. Groups A, B, C and D will move on to Cologne, while groups E, F, G and H will continue in Hanover.