2025 World Men's Handball Championship


The 2025 IHF World Men's Handball Championship, will be the 29th event hosted by the International Handball Federation. It will be held in Croatia, Denmark and Norway in January 2025.

Bidding process

Five nations in expressed interest in hosting the tournament. The awarding of the events took place at the IHF Council meeting in Cairo, Egypt on 28 February 2020. Croatia, Denmark and Norway were chosen as the hosts. This will be the second time Croatia will host this tournament, the third time for Denmark, and the first time for Norway.
The tournament is expecting to take place in 11 cities Zagreb, Split, Varaždin, Poreč and Dubrovnik in Croatia, Copenhagen and Herning in Denmark and Trondheim, Stavanger, Drammen and Oslo in Norway. The opening and final will take place in Oslo.
Oslo, Norway Drammen, Norway Trondheim, Norway Stavanger, Norway Herning, Denmark Copenhagen, Denmark
Telenor Arena
Capacity: 15,000
New Drammen Arena
Capacity: 12,000
Trondheim Spektrum
Capacity: 8,960
Stavanger Idrettshall
Capacity: 8,000
Jyske Bank Boxen
Capacity: 15,000
Royal Arena
Capacity: 12,500
Zagreb, Croatia Split, Croatia Varaždin, Croatia Dubrovnik, Croatia Poreč, Croatia-
Arena Zagreb
Capacity: 15,200
Spaladium Arena
Capacity: 11,000
Varaždin Arena
Capacity: 5,200
New Dubrovnik Arena
Capacity: 5,000-5,200
Žatika Sport Centre
Capacity: 3,700
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Qualification

The World Championship organizers will be directly qualified, along with the reigning world champions.
Following decision about increasing number of participating teams, the number of compulsory places awarded to each continental confederation is divided as follows: four places each for Asia and Europe and six places for Africa.
Starting in 2021 Pan America was split into two zones: the North America and Caribbean Zone, having one compulsory place and the South and Central America Zone having four compulsory places.
One additional place is available for Oceania, but only in the case where that national team rank fifth or higher at the Asian Championship. If no Oceania team places among the top five at the Asian Championship, the IHF will award an additional Wild Card.
In addition, there will be several performance places for the continental confederations, which are based on the teams ranked 1–12 of the preceding World Championship.
According to the new qualification system and taking into consideration the results of the 2023 Men’s World Championship, 32 places are distributed as follows:
CompetitionDatesHostVacanciesQualified
Host nations28 February 2020 Cairo3
2023 World Championship29 January 2023
1
2024 European Men's Handball Championship28 January 20244
2024 African Men's Handball Championship28 January 20246
2024 Asian Men's Handball ChampionshipTBDTBD4
2024 South and Central American Men's Handball ChampionshipTBDTBD4
2024 Nor.ca. Men's Handball ChampionshipTBDTBD1
European qualificationTBDVarious7
Wild Card18 October 2018 Doha1+1

1. To bear in mind the 2028 Summer Olympics, the IHF Council awarded the United States with Wild Cards for the 2025 and 2027 World Championships.
2. If countries from Oceania participating in the Asian Championships finish within the top 5, they will qualify for the World Championships. If they finish placed sixth or lower, the place would have been transferred to the Wild Card spot.

Qualified teams