2026 World Baseball Classic

The 2026 World Baseball Classic is an international professional baseball tournament between 20 national baseball teams, and the sixth iteration of the World Baseball Classic (WBC). It began on March 5, 2026, and will run until March 17. The pool-play rounds are being played in Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Tokyo, Japan. The quarterfinals will be split between Miami and Houston; the semifinals and the final will be played in Miami.

The top two teams from the Americas (alongside Olympic hosts United States) will qualify for the 2028 Olympic baseball tournament, to be held in Los Angeles. Japan is the defending champion, having defeated the United States in the 2023 WBC championship game.

16 teams qualified for the 2026 WBC tournament by virtue of having placed in the top four of their respective pools in the 2023 World Baseball Classic tournament.

Four additional teams qualified through the 2026 WBC qualifying tournament. The qualifying tournament included 8 teams, downsized from the 12 teams that had competed in the 2023 WBC qualifiers. The first pool took place in Taipei, and included Chinese Taipei, Spain, Nicaragua, and South Africa; the second pool took place in Tucson, Arizona, and included Colombia, China, Brazil, and Germany. The Taipei pool ran from February 21–25, 2025, and the Tucson pool ran from March 2–6, 2025.

Colombia, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Chinese Taipei all qualified for the 2026 WBC. Brazil qualified for the first time since 2013. China failed to qualify for the first time in the World Baseball Classic, as it was eliminated after it lost all three of its games in the qualifiers.

¹ Ranking as of December 31, 2025

The pools and schedule were announced on August 21, 2024. Each pool contained an unspecified winner of a qualifier. The pool assignments of the teams that advanced from the qualifiers (pot 5) were announced on April 9, 2025. The pool assignments prioritized the hosts (Japan, Puerto Rico, and the United States). The remaining pool assignments were made based on WBSC World Rankings, competitive balance, and commercial and geographic interest.

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the WBSC World Rankings at the time of the announcement of the pools.