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The draw for Rugby World Cup 2027 will take place in January 2026. This will mean that it happens with two full years of international competition remaining. This marks an early draw with World Rankings from the end of November 2025 to be used for seedings.
The draw will divide the 24 participants into six pools of four teams each. This will see the draw made before regional qualifiers have ended. It will be a draw of two worlds. On the one hand, the twelve automatic qualifiers from RWC 2023 will be there by name. On the other hand, Regional qualifiers will be listed as Africa 1, Europe 1, Europe 2 and so on.
Rugby World Cup 2027 will be played in Australia. It is the eleventh edition of the Men’s Rugby World Cup and the third in Australia. The country co-hosted the inaugural Rugby World Cup with New Zealand in 1987 and hosted the tournament alone in 2003.
Rugby World Cup 2003 was the second with twenty teams. The first, in 1999, saw five pools of four teams. They were spread across five nations. While it was Wales 1999, England, France, Ireland, and Scotland each hosted a pool and knock-out matches.
Australia 2003 saw four pools of five teams. This format continued for 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023. The change for 2027 will see a round-of-16 introduced. The following model is an example of how 24-teams can be used for such a tournament.
The change to 24 teams comes after North America missed out on Rugby World Cup 2023. Chile eliminated Canada while, after losses to Uruguay and Chile, the USA was forced into repechage. Portugal eliminated the USA.
Changes mean there will be four additional places at Rugby World Cup 2027. The qualifying model for Rugby World Cup 2027 remains unconfirmed. The Americas is expected to be split into South America and North America.
