Every 2026 World Cup ticket price, if you’re lucky enough to get chosen to buy
The vast majority of 2026 World Cup tickets cost hundreds of dollars, and most upper-deck seats at the final cost either $2,790 or $4,210, according to fans who won the opportunity to purchase tickets on the opening day of sales.
FIFA had tightly guarded ticket prices until Wednesday. In early September, it announced that the cheapest tickets would start at $60, but did not reveal most prices, and never released a round-by-round, category-by-category breakdown — the type of table it has traditionally produced to inform fans of prices prior to the start of sales.
Instead, it allowed a select few fans — the first winners of the first ticket lottery — to find and publicly reveal prices. More than a dozen shared screenshots and information with The Athletic. One compiled a complete price list that appears to be mostly accurate.
Many fans waited for hours in digital queues, then found that the $60 tickets FIFA had promised were extremely scarce. Those were only available for some group-stage games, and often confined to the upper portion of a few corner sections in the upper decks of stadiums.
Group matches in the United States, excluding U.S. men’s national team games, were priced as follows — with the higher prices for games at SoFi Stadium in Southern California, Levi’s Stadium in the Bay Area and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey:
At all stadiums, according to color-coded maps shown to ticket buyers, Category 1 encompassed the entire lower bowl and most or all of the second deck — meaning a fan who pays $620 for a group game at SoFi could be placed anywhere on the 100 or 200 level.
Category 2, at most stadiums, is predominantly the upper deck along the sidelines; Category 3 is the upper deck above either goal; and Category 4 seems to be the upper third of one upper-deck section at each corner of most stadiums.
At the other end of the tournament and price range, for the World Cup final at MetLife, tickets cost:
For the World Cup opener at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, prices range from $745 in Category 3 to $1,825 in Category 1.
For the U.S. opener at SoFi Stadium in Southern California, on the second day of the tournament, prices range from $1,120 in Category 3 to $2,735 in Category 1. (In general, prices for games in Mexico are slightly cheaper than for those in the U.S.)
For the second USMNT game, in Seattle on Jun. 19, tickets range from $185 in Category 3 to $535 in Category 1. For the third USMNT game, back in Southern California, tickets are $280 in Category 3 and $805 in Category 1.
For those games and some others, Category 4 allotments were all gone by the time some fans got out of the queue and into the ticket portal on Wednesday afternoon.
And within a couple of hours, tickets to the World Cup final were no longer available in any category.
Prices get progressively more expensive as the tournament moves through the knockout rounds. In the Round of 32, for games in the U.S., tickets are priced as follows:
For the Round of 16, prices increased to:
For the quarterfinals in Kansas City and Foxborough, Massachusetts, tickets ranged from $485 in Category 3 to $1,125 in Category 1. For the quarterfinal at SoFi Stadium just outside Los Angeles, they were $725 in Category 3 and $1,690 in Category 1.
For the semifinals, Category 3 seats were $720 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — and no longer available by Wednesday evening. Category 2 seats were $1,920, and Category 1 seats were $2,780. Tickets were slightly cheaper for the Atlanta semifinal.
In addition to, or instead of single-match tickets, fans were also able to purchase team-specific packages that include tickets to all three group games that a given country will play. Within the packages for Argentina or Brazil, tickets for a single game were priced at:
All prices are subject to change based on demand, according to FIFA’s “variable pricing” strategy, officials said last month.
Timeline, logistics for “Visa presale” ticket phase
Wednesday marked the start of a monthslong, multi-phase process. Out of around 4.5 million entrants in a “Visa presale draw” lottery, FIFA randomly selected a relatively small number and gave them a 24-hour window to purchase tickets beginning at 11 a.m. ET.
Those successful applicants were notified on Monday. Another batch of winners was notified via email — from a “noreply” FIFA address — on Wednesday morning. This second batch was given time slots beginning Friday, but the email itself did not include the specific time slot; some, therefore, mistakenly believed they’d be able to access tickets on Wednesday, and also tried to enter the digital queue at 11 a.m.
Many who did have Wednesday time slots waited for hours on a screen that read: “Almost there… Your position in the queue is secured. Don’t move!” But most, if not all, were eventually able to enter and smoothly buy tickets. (A FIFA spokesman did not immediately give a reason for the long waits.)
So over an hour later.. I haven’t seen anyone get in. I heard it was 40 tickets max in total and 4 tickets to each game max.@FIFAWorldCup @FIFAcom #fifa #fifawc #queue #tickets #circle pic.twitter.com/OsUmmRN2Fv — kisan.eth (@Kiissaan) October 1, 2025
So over an hour later.. I haven’t seen anyone get in.
I heard it was 40 tickets max in total and 4 tickets to each game max.@FIFAWorldCup @FIFAcom #fifa #fifawc #queue #tickets #circle pic.twitter.com/OsUmmRN2Fv
— kisan.eth (@Kiissaan) October 1, 2025
Most entrants, though, have not received any correspondence from FIFA. Some anxiously awaited emails that never came — because fans will be notified on a rolling basis over the next three weeks. No rejection emails will be sent until the end of the ticket phase in mid-late October.
Around 1 million tickets — roughly 15% of the 2026 World Cup’s total inventory — will be available during this “Visa Presale” phase, FIFA officials have said. The number of applicants selected for the chance to buy tickets will ultimately depend on how many tickets the early winners purchase. Each person will be allowed to buy up to 40 tickets in total, with a cap of four per match.
FIFA will select winners until the 1 million tickets are claimed. Fans will always be notified more than 48 hours before their purchasing window opens, but the cadence will vary, FIFA told The Athletic; there will not be new time slots, nor new batches of emails, every single day.
Most entrants will likely be unsuccessful. They, and anyone else who would like to purchase tickets, will be able to enter a second “early ticket draw” beginning Oct. 27.
Options for after the draw
In each of these first two phases, fans will buy tickets for games featuring unknown teams. Other than the national teams of Canada, Mexico and the United States — which automatically qualified as co-hosts, and know when and where they’ll be playing — those who’ve qualified won’t know dates and locations of their games until Dec. 5, when all will be determined at the World Cup draw.
Until then, fans have three options:
Buy tickets for a single match, at a specific stadium, on a specific date, but with the matchup TBD vs. TBD.
Buy a venue-specific package — tickets to all group-stage games and the first knockout game at a given stadium. (The U.S., Mexico and Canada openers, in Los Angeles, Mexico City and Toronto, are excluded from these packages.)
Buy a team-specific package — tickets to all three group-stage games featuring a given team.
After the draw, there will be a third lottery phase. During this phase, the expectation is that FIFA’s “variable pricing” strategy will come into play. Prices for games featuring popular teams, such as Argentina or England, will likely rise; prices for games featuring less popular teams could fall.
The fluctuations will depend on demand, and could even occur within this Visa presale, as soon as Friday, when the next batch of lottery winners get their chance to purchase tickets.
After the post-draw lottery phase, a fourth and final phase will open in the spring, with remaining tickets available for purchase on a first-come, first-served basis.
FIFA will also soon launch an “official” resale platform, where fans can sell and buy tickets from one another, with no cap on the markup.
(Top photo: Li Muzi / Xinhua via Getty Images)
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms
Find the hidden link between sports terms