The 2020 AFC U-23 Championship qualification was an international men's under-23 football competition which decide the participating teams of the 2020 AFC U-23 Championship.
A total of 16 teams qualified to play in the final tournament, including Thailand who qualified automatically as hosts country. These matches also served as the first stage of the AFC qualifiers for the 2020 Summer Olympics men's football tournament in Japan.
Of the 47 AFC member associations, a total of 44 teams entered the competition. The final tournament hosts Thailand decided to participate in qualification despite having automatically qualified for the final tournament.
The draw was held on 7 November 2018, 15:00 MYT (), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 44 teams were drawn into eleven groups of four teams. For the draw, teams were divided into two zones:
The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship final tournament and qualification (overall ranking shown in parentheses; NR stands for non-ranked teams). The following restrictions were also applied:
Players born on or after 1 January 1997 are eligible to compete in the tournament.
In each group, teams play each other once at a centralized venue. The eleven group winners and the four best runners-up qualify for the final tournament. If the final tournament hosts Thailand win their group or are among the four best runners-up, the fifth best runner-up also qualifies for the final tournament.
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 9.3).
The matches were played between 22 and 26 March 2019.
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Due to groups having different number of teams (after the withdrawal of Pakistan from Group F), the results against the fourth-placed teams in four-team groups were not considered for this ranking.
The following 16 teams qualified for the 2020 AFC U-23 Championship.