| Rank | Heat | Lane | Nation | Athletes | Time | Notes |
| 1 | 2 | 5 | | Julian Reus, Sven Knipphals, Alexander Kosenkow, Lucas Jakubczyk | 38.15 | Q, SB |
| 2 | 1 | 4 | | James Ellington, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Richard Kilty, Daniel Talbot | 38.26 | Q |
| 3 | 1 | 5 | | Pascal Mancini, Reto Schenkel, Suganthan Somasundaram, Alex Wilson | 38.54 | Q, NR |
| 4 | 2 | 4 | | Pierre Vincent, Christophe Lemaitre, Teddy Tinmar, Ben Bassaw | 38.55 | Q |
| 5 | 2 | 7 | | Fabio Cerutti, Eseosa Desalu, Diego Marani, Delmas Obou | 38.71 | Q, SB |
| 6 | 2 | 2 | | Robert Kubaczyk, Dariusz Kuć, Kamil Masztak, Karol Zalewski | 38.75 | q |
| 7 | 2 | 1 | | Diogo Antunes, Francis Obikwelu, Arnaldo Abrantes, Yazaldes Nascimento | 38.79 | q, NR |
| 8 | 1 | 8 | | Giovanni Codrington, Churandy Martina, Hensley Paulina, Wouter Brus | 38.90 | Q |
| 9 | 1 | 1 | | Roman Kravtsov, Serhiy Smelyk, Vitaliy Korzh, Emil Ibrahimov | 39.03 | |
| 10 | 1 | 7 | | Tom Kling-Baptiste, Stefan Tärnhuvud, Alexander Brorsson, Erik Hagberg | 39.27 | SB |
| 11 | 1 | 6 | | Eetu Rantala, Ville Myllymäki, Jonathan Åstrand, Hannu Hämäläinen | 39.47 | SB |
| 12 | 1 | 3 | | Mart Muru, Rait Veesalu, Markus Ellisaar, Marek Niit | 39.52 | NR |
| 13 | 2 | 3 | | Stefan Alexandru Codreanu, Doru Teofilescu, Alexandru Terpezan, Catalin Cîmpeanu | 39.67 | SB |
| 14 | 1 | 2 | | Umutcan Emektas, İzzet Safer, Aykut Ay, Ramil Guliyev | 39.83 | SB |
| 15 | 2 | 8 | | Žilvinas Adomavičius, Kostas Skrabulis, Ugnius Savickas, Rytis Sakalauskas | 40.15 | |
| 2 | 6 | | Eduard Viles, Sergio Ruíz, Iván Jesús Ramos, Adrià Burriel | | |
