2021 Rugby World Cup


The 2021 Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth Rugby World Cup for women, to be held in New Zealand between 18 September and 16 October 2021 in the cities of Auckland and Whangarei. This will be the first women's Rugby World Cup to be held in the southern hemisphere. The eighth World Cup was played in 2017 in Dublin and Belfast, setting record attendances and viewership numbers.
In May 2018, it was announced that the format of the World Cup would be changing for the 2021 World Cup with classification matches being replaced with quarter finals.
On 21 August 2019, World Rugby announced that gender designations would be removed from the title of the women's World Cup. All World Cup tournaments from 2021 forward, whether for men or women, will be officially called the "Rugby World Cup" with a year designation.

Host selection

The schedule for World Rugby to select a host country is:
  1. 31 May 2018 — Unions formally confirm an expression of interest in bidding. Six unions confirmed their interest in bidding — four European nations ; and two southern hemisphere nations.
  2. 10 August 2018 — Unions submit bids to World Rugby. Both Australia and New Zealand have publicly announced that they have submitted bids to host the tournament, which has never been held in the southern hemisphere.
  3. 14 November 2018 — World Rugby Council selects tournament host in Dublin.
New Zealand will host the 2021 Rugby World Cup, as announced by World Rugby on 14 November 2018. It will be the first women's Rugby World Cup to be held in the southern hemisphere.

Qualifying

New Zealand, the host nation, had already qualified automatically winning the 2017 tournament before being announced as hosts. A further six teams qualified automatically as top seven finishers at the 2017 tournament. The remaining qualifiers will be determined by the end of 2020.

Qualified teams

AfricaAmericasAsiaEuropeOceania
Automatic Qualifiers
    • Regional Qualifiers
  • TBD
  • TBD
    • Cross-RegionalRepechage play-off
    • Repechagetournament
    • TBD
  • TBD
  • TBD

    • Broadcasting

    will be the host broadcaster for the Rugby World Cup, broadcasting all matches live and on demand through its online streaming platform. TVNZ will broadcast a selection of games free-to-air on New Zealand television.