Hosts France gain automatic entry to the 24-team finals and will be joined by eight other European sides. Qualifying is in three stages: the preliminary round involving the 16 lowest nations in the UEFA Women’s National Team Coefficient Rankings; the qualifying group stage, for which the other 30 hopefuls gain automatic entry; and a series of play-offs which will decide Europe’s eighth qualifier.
The Preliminary Round draw on 19th January will include a World Cup debut for Andorra and a first competitive tournament for Kosovo.
Those 16 entrants in coefficient order are:
Turkey, Israel, Greece, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Albania, Faroe Islands, Moldova, Malta, Montenegro, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Andorra, Kosovo
They will be drawn into four groups of four, with the section winners and the runner-up with the best record against the sides first and third in their section progressing to the qualifying group stage. Four teams will be selected to host the mini-tournaments played on 6, 8 and 11 April.
The qualifying group stage automatic entrants in coefficient order are as follows:
Germany, England, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Iceland, Scotland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Russia, Finland, Ukraine, Wales, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland, Portugal, Serbia, Hungary, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belarus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Northern Ireland, Croatia, (plus five teams tbc from preliminary round)
Seven groups of five will be drawn on 25th April, with matches to be scheduled between September 2017 and September 2018. Only the group winners will automatically qualify to join France in the finals but the four best runners-up will progress to the play-offs in October and November 2018.
Continental allocations for final tournament:
Africa (CAF): 3
Asia (AFC): 5
Europe (UEFA): 8, plus hosts France
North/Central America (CONCACAF): 3 plus 1 to play-off v CONMEBOL third place
Oceania (OFC): 1
South America (CONMEBOL): 2 plus 1 to play-off v CONCACAF fourth place
Source – uefa.com
