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| (FIFA Collect) |
The 2026 World Cup is coming to North America next summer, and ticket demand will likely set records.
FIFA says there were 23 million World Cup ticket requests in 2022, but only 3.4 million tickets were available. With those odds, the chances of winning the lottery to buy 2026 World Cup tickets will be slim.
There is good news for fans who don't want to wait for the lottery and risk not winning a chance to buy World Cup tickets. There are currently two ways to guarantee yourself tickets to the 2026 World Cup without having to wait for the lottery process.
The first option is buying hospitality tickets from FIFA. Those are extremely expensive, though. If you wanted to buy one ticket to the USA's three group stage games, for example, hospital tickets start at $14,000 (and hospitality prices go up from there).
Fortunately, there is a second option.
FIFA Collect is an official trading platform from FIFA that gives fans the opportunity to buy and sell soccer-inspired NFTs (note that the FIFA Collect links I post here are referral links).
There are various "surprise packs" and challenges that fans can purchase with the hopes of winning prizes that include the "Right To Buy" 2026 World Cup tickets. Those "Right To Buy" (RTB) NFTs can be redeemed closer to the tournament, giving you the guaranteed opportunity to buy face value tickets from FIFA without having to win the ticket lottery. Just note that each RTB is for a specific match (for example, the USMNT's opening match is "M4").
Fans can skip the challenges and go straight to the secondary marketplace to buy RTBs that have been listed by other users who have completed the challenges and decided to sell their rewards.
On the secondary marketplace, you can purchase an RTB to a pair of tickets to the USA's opening match (M4) for $3,600. (Note that the price at the time of publication is subject to change based on the market.) The RTB to USMNT's second group match (M32) is listed for $649, and the USA's third group match (M59) is listed for $630. So you could secure the right to buy six total tickets to the USMNT's three group stage games (2 tickets per match) for $4,879 on FIFA Collect.
That's still a big price tag, but it comes down to about $813 per ticket and guarantees your chance to buy face value World Cup tickets without having to take a chance with the lottery. If you opted to skip the opener due to the high cost, you could purchase RTBs to the second and third USA games for a total of $1,279 for the opportunity to purchase four tickets. There's also an M32 and M59 bundle listed for $1,150 on FIFA Collect. (Again, note that these prices are subject to change as 2026 draws closer.)
And just to reiterate, these RTBs from FIFA Collect give you the guaranteed opportunity to buy tickets to the 2026 World Cup. After securing the RTBs, you would still have to opt into buying the actual tickets when they become available from FIFA (alternatively, you could sell your RTB).
So, how much will the tickets cost at face value? When U.S. Soccer (along with Mexico and Canada's soccer federations) bid to co-host the 2026 World Cup in 2018, they suggested Category 3 prices of $320 for the opener and $174 for non-opener group games (there are four categories of non-luxury tickets). You can view all the proposed prices on page 490 of the bid proposal on FIFA's website.
Note that those were the proposed prices way back in 2018. The actual tickets could end up being far more expensive. We won't know the actual prices until they are announced by FIFA.
If we took a guess and added $100 to U.S. Soccer's suggested prices, buying two tickets to each of the USMNT's three group games (including the opener) would be $1,936 (again, that's just a wild guess). If you were worried about not winning the lottery and opted to buy RTBs from FIFA Collect for $4,879, that would be a (hypothetical) total of $6,815 to secure two tickets to each of the USA's three group games. A bit better than the $14,000 hospitality price for one ticket to the three games.
FIFA attempts to prevent the resale of tickets outside of their official in-house resale website, but fans will likely still list tickets on resale websites like SeatGeek, StubHub, Vivid Seats and viagogo. (Those are affiliate links. Note that if you have a new SeatGeek account, you can get $20 off your first SeatGeek order with promo code JONHEATH.)
Fans should note that FIFA has said "the resale or attempted resale of tickets ... is strictly prohibited," so turning to the secondary market is a risky endeavor and not advisable.
So unless you can afford hospitality tickets, the best way to guarantee the opportunity to buy tickets to the 2026 World Cup is on FIFA Collect.
I can earn commissions when readers click my referral links. The figures for World Cup ticket prices are guesstimates and should not be taken as official or as financial advice.