World Cup 2026 Tickets: 104-Match Drop Hits Wednesday

More than five million tickets are already in fans' hands, and on Wednesday, April 22, FIFA opens the door wider. Starting at 11:00 ET on FIFA.com/tickets, inventory across all 104 matches goes on sale on a first-come, first-served basis, including front-row seats and Category 1 through 3. The drop is timed to the 50-day countdown to the June 11 kickoff at Estadio Azteca, and it is the first clear look at what remains at the eleven US host venues.

For the road to 2026, this matters because the fan experience question is whether the tournament feels owned by the host cities or imposed on them, and the answer gets shaped in the next fifty days as ticket pools harden. Atmosphere is a function of choices made months before kickoff: which section holds the away end, how ticketing balances corporate demand against supporter demand, whether neighborhood energy grows up around venues or gets pushed away from them. Wednesday's drop is where that mix starts to lock in for American venues that, in several cases, will host their first competitive international soccer fixture in decades.

What the drop means for US host cities

The eight matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California are the anchor of the Los Angeles schedule, beginning with the USMNT's opener against Paraguay on June 12. Seattle's Lumen Field carries the US group stage's middle match against Australia on June 19, and SoFi returns for the Americans' final group match against Turkiye on June 25. Those three dates are the most crowded traffic points for American buyers in Wednesday's queue, and they sit alongside drops for high-demand games in New York/New Jersey, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Boston. Fans plotting a travel route can cross-reference the full USA match schedule as the inventory maps update.

The Last-Minute Sales Phase will keep running until the July 19 final, with further drops rolled out on a recurring basis as seats return or get reallocated. FIFA is warning buyers to expect digital queues at launch given the volume of interest. Once inside, fans can pick seats from the stadium map or use the "Book the best seat" tool that surfaces the top available pair or group across categories. Ticket holders can also resell through the official Resale and Exchange Marketplace on FIFA.com/tickets, which FIFA has positioned as the safeguard against counterfeit listings and unauthorized markups.

Entry rules, FIFA PASS, and the hospitality track

FIFA is also reminding buyers that a match ticket is not a travel document. Fans should check the entry requirements for Canada, Mexico, and the United States on each host country's government website before they commit, and submit any required visa applications early because processing windows are tightening this late in the cycle. Ticket holders headed to the United States are eligible for the FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System, known as FIFA PASS, which opens expedited interview windows at US consulates for confirmed buyers. Anyone who would rather bundle accommodations with match access in a single plan can review hospitality packages through On Location at FIFA.com/hospitality, the tournament's official provider.

The rollout sits inside a larger arc. The 3.5 million-ticket attendance record set at the 1994 World Cup, the last US-hosted edition, is on course to be surpassed across 39 days of this tournament, according to FIFA. That number resonates here because 1994 is still the reference point for what American hosting can scale to, and the 48-team, 104-match 2026 format is the next test of that ceiling. Readers still plotting a route through the draw can start with our USMNT tournament overview for 2026, which pulls the group, venues, and pre-Cup camp markers into one view.

Sources

• FIFA Media Release, "FIFA World Cup 2026 Last-Minute Sales Phase to feature new ticket drop on 22 April," 21 April 2026
• KESQ / City News Service, "World Cup tickets to drop Wednesday for all matches," 21 April 2026
• NBC Sports, "USMNT 2026 World Cup schedule and results"