The Rugby League World Cup qualification is the process a national team goes through to qualify for the Rugby League World Cup Finals.
Qualifying rounds were first introduced for the 2000 World Cup to reflect the recent expansion of the tournament.
From 2017 hosts and teams reaching the knockout rounds of the previous tournament automatically qualify for the next. The remaining spots are achieved through regional qualification tournaments, split between the four International Rugby League confederation Asia-Pacific, Americas, Europe, and Middle East-Africa.
Prior to this qualification tournament occurred in more random groups and major rugby league nations were still invited without need for qualification.
Because of a changing number of teams making the finals and entering the qualifiers, and the unpredictability of the geographic spread of teams automatically qualifying, the format of the qualification tournament has changed with each edition of the tournament.
Pre-qualification era
New Zealand (TL), France (TR), Great Britain (BL), and Australia (BR) shirts from the inaugural 1954 tournament. They were the four nations to compete in the competition until the 1980s.
1954–1977
In the first eight edition of the tournament only four teams were invited to participate. These were:
NB: In 1975 Great Britain split into England and Wales for a one-off tournament due to Wales wanting to showcase their influx of Welsh talent they had at the time. No Scottish or Irish player made the original Great Britain squad for that year.
1985–1992
For the next two editions of the tournament, a fifth nation was invited to participate:
Following the expansion of the tournament to a group and knockout format, the number of participating teams increase as well. The initial tournament of the modern era would be the final invited only tournament with four new teams making debut:
As of the 2021 tournament, 21 different teams have competed in at least one world cup either via invitation or qualification. Australia, France, and New Zealand, are the only teams to have completed in every tournament. England has also participate in every tournament but competed as Great Britain prior to 1995 with the exception of 1975.
a Competed as Great Britain in nine previous tournaments. The squads largely consisted of English players, but also featured Welsh players in every tournament. Scotland (1954, 1968, 1977, 1989–92), and Ireland (1957) were represented by native-born players in some tournaments. b After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been banned from all international tournaments. c The United States was invited to the 1954 World Cup, but later canceled their invitation.
Participation
The following table shows the number of years each team has completed in both the qualifiers and final tournament. Bold inducates teams automatically qualified or were invited to participate.
The following table shows which years teams made their qualification tournament debut. It doesn't not include teams that have previously qualified automatically or invited to participate.
