For the EHF EURO 2028 Qualifiers promotion round, the six teams are divided into two pots, with pot 1 consisting of Latvia, Estonia and Türkiye, the three lowest fourth-ranked teams from the Men's EHF EURO 2026 Qualifiers. Pot 2 includes Great Britain and Cyprus, who were the winners and runners-up at the Men's EHF EURO 2028 Qualifiers phase 1 tournament in January 2025; and Bulgaria, who are the best-ranked European team from the IHF/EHF Emerging Nations Tournament in April 2025 who had not previously qualified for the promotion round.
The draw will generate three pairings, with each team from pot 1 to play one team from pot 2. The team drawn first in each pairing will have the home right in the first leg of the promotion round, which will take place on 7/8 January 2026. The second leg follows on 10/11 January.
The winner of each set of play-off matches progresses to the Men's EHF EURO 2028 Qualifiers phase 2 tournament, starting in November 2026 and concluding in May 2027.
Also on Thursday 26 June, the six teams participating in Qualification Phase 1 of the 2027 IHF Men’s World Championship will discover their opponents.
Türkiye, Luxembourg, Kosovo, Latvia, Cyprus and Great Britain are participating in the first phase as the six lowest-ranked European teams registered for the 2027 World Championship.
The draw procedure is formatted in the same way as the Men's EHF EURO 2028 Qualifiers promotion round draw; the Pot 1 teams (Türkiye, Luxembourg and Kosovo) drawn against the Pot 2 teams to create three pairings.
The teams will play the other in their pairing home and away to determine which three teams will qualify for Qualification Phase 2, which will consist of 16 teams in total.
The first legs will take place on 29/30 October 2025, before the second legs on 1/2 November 2025.
The draws will be streamed live on the Home of Handball YouTube channel.
