The 2026 EHF European Women's Handball Championship, commonly referred to as the EHF Euro 2026, was the 17th edition of the EHF European Women's Handball Championship, the biennial international women's handball championship of Europe organized by EHF. The tournament will be held from 3 to 20 December 2026.
The championship was originally scheduled to be held in Russia, but due to the invasion of Ukraine, they were stripped of the hosting rights. On 8 March 2024, It was announced that all five applicants, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey will co-host the tournament, marking the first time the event was held by more than three countries. The final will be held in Katowice, Poland.
24 teams will participate for the second time. Qualification took place in March 2024 to April 2025 to decide the qualifiers. The five co-hosts qualified automatically, alongside the top three from the 2024, Norway, Denmark and Hungary.
This tournament will act as a qualifier for the 2027 World Women's Handball Championship in Hungary and 2028 edition in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Norway are the defending champions, having beaten Denmark in the 2024 final in Vienna.
On 11 May 2021 it was announced that the following nations sent in an official expression of interest:
On 20 October the final bids were presented. The Scandinavian bid was withdrawn, leaving Russia unopposed.
As only the Russian bid remained it was unanimously selected at the 14th EHF Extraordinary Congress on 20 November 2021.
On 4 July 2023, the EHF confirmed that Russia would not host the event due to the war in Ukraine, and thus reopened the bidding process. On 25 October, the EHF announced the official bids.
The hosts were originally going to be announced on 28 January 2024 in Cologne, but the EHF decided to delay the announcement to April while also inviting every bidding nation to a meeting in mid-February.
During the meeting in mid-February, Romanian media reported that a possible five-country co-hosting plan was being negotiated by all five bidding countries and the EHF after it was reported that none of the three bids fulfilled all the requirements.
On 8 March 2024, the EHF announced all five countries, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey, as co-hosts. This marks the second time a European championship has been held in more than four countries, after UEFA Euro 2020.
Six venues will be used for the tournament. Each country will use one arena with the exception being Romania who will use two in Cluj-Napoca and Oradea. While none of these arenas have hosted the championship, the Spodek in Katowice and Ondrej Nepela Arena in Bratislava have experience organising the men's edition.
30 teams registered for participation and competed for 16 places at the final tournament. After the preliminary round, the teams were drawn into six groups of four. The top-two placed teams in each group qualified for the final tournament, alongside the four best-ranked third-placed teams, not counting the matches against fourth-placed teams. The qualifiers draw took place on 20 March 2025 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Qualification started in March 2024 and ended in April 2025.