FK Baku were the defending champions.
The first stage consisted of a regular home-and-away round-robin schedule for a total of 22 matches per team.
However, each team took over to the respective group only records earned against the remaining 5 teams in their second round group.
The teams ranked first through sixth played out the championship and the European spots while the bottom six teams had to avoid one of the two relegation places.
Since the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan did not grant a Premier League license to any of the teams in the Azerbaijan First Division,[1] the league size was reduced to twelve teams.