Article by David Istrate – Published on Sunday, 12 April 2026 22:34 / Updated on Sunday, 12 April 2026 22:37
On Sunday, April 12, following the last stage of the preliminaries of the European Women's Handball Championship at the end of this year, all the teams that will be present at the final tournament from December 3-20 were announced. Romania will be one of the hosts of the competition, along with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey.
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The draw for the groups of the European Women's Handball Championship will take place on Thursday, April 16 at 19:00 in the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) in Katowice, Poland.
Romania is one of the hosts of this year's European Women's Handball Championship. A preliminary group will be held in Oradea, while Cluj-Napoca will host both a preliminary group and one of the two main groups. Katowice is the city where both the matches from the other main group and the semi-finals and final of the competition will be played.
The other organizing countries from EURO 2026 are Poland (Katowice), Czech Republic (Brno), Turkey (Antalya) and Slovakia (Bratislava). The 5 hosts, together with Norway, Denmark and Hungary, who were on the podium at the previous edition of the European Championship, qualified directly for the final tournament and did not have to go through the preliminaries.
Instead, they competed in the EHF Euro Cup, Norway, Denmark, Hungary and Romania managing to qualify for the Final 4 from 21-27 September.
24 teams will play in the European Women's Handball Championship from December 2026
Following the preliminaries for the European Championship, there were the other 16 teams that will participate in the final tournament in December. Here is the list of national teams that will play at EURO 2026:
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Czechia
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Poland
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ROMANIA
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Slovakia
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Tipcat
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Denmark
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Norway
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Hungary
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Sweden
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Spain
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Netherlands
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Germany
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France
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Slovenia
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Croatia
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Switzerland
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Montenegro
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Faroe Islands
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Austria
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bondage
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Greece
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Iceland
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North Macedonia
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Ukraine
Greece is the only debutant at the European Women's Handball Championship, while Austria, the Faeroe Islands and Turkey will play for the second time at the final tournament. Romania will participate for the 16th time in the EURO, the best result being the third place, obtained in 2010.
