2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup qualification

The 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup qualification was an international men's under-17 football competition which was being held to decide the participating teams of the 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup.

Draw

All 47 Asian Football Confederation member associations entered the competition. Nine teams including the hosts Saudi Arabia who qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup automatically qualify for the final tournament, while the other 38 teams participate in qualification.
The draw was held on 7 August 2025 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 16:00 local time.
The 38 teams were allocated to three groups of six teams and four groups of five teams, with teams seeded based on a points system derived from their final rankings across the previous three editions of the Finals. A further restriction was also applied, with the seven teams serving as qualification group hosts drawn into separate groups.

;Notes

Teams in bold qualified for the final tournament.
: Qualification group hosts.

Groups

Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams remain tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points ;
Drawing of lots.

Group A

All matches are being held in China.
Times listed are UTC+8.

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Group B

All matches are being held in Kyrgyzstan.
Times listed are UTC+6.

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Group C

All matches are being held in Vietnam.
Times listed are UTC+7.

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Group D

All matches are being held in India.
Times listed are UTC+5:30.

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Group E

All matches are being held in Jordan.
Times listed are UTC+3.

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Group F

All matches are being held in Thailand.
Times listed are UTC+7.

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Group G

All matches are being held in Myanmar.
Times listed are UTC+6:30.

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Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Qualified as	Appearance	Previous best performance¹
		13th
		12th
		12th
		17th
		13th
		18th
		8th
		9th
		6th
		17th
		9th
		10th
		10th
		9th
		14th
		5th