The most recent edition in 2024 was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and crowned Brazil as champions for the sixth time – after defeating Italy 6–4 in the final.
They kept the tradition of holding the world cup in Rio de Janeiro and continued to allow 12 teams to participate, following on from the 2004 competition.
The tournament was deemed a "major success" and therefore, for the 2006 competition and beyond, FIFA decided to standardise the participants to 16 countries.
It was then that the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers were also established that would take place throughout the year.
By the end of the 2007 World Cup, the tournament had become more popular, with the FIFA board taking over the competition, driving more countries to recognize beach soccer as a "major" sport.
This would also help increase the sport's awareness across the globe and make sure all confederations were represented at the finals at every following World Cup, unlike in the past."
Besides Europe who continued to use the Euro Beach Soccer League as the method of World Cup qualification until 2008, all other confederations hosted their first championships in 2006 in view of the finals later that year.
The allocation of World Cup spots and the number of teams that qualify from their regional championship to the World Cup was decided by FIFA in 2006 as follows: ^ As part of the Euro Beach Soccer League The host country's confederation loses one qualification spot.
Despite being the premier tournament in most regions, since the primary objective is to qualify to the World Cup, on some occasions teams have not participated due to qualifying to the finals automatically as hosts such as Brazil deferring from the 2007 CONMBEBOL Beach Soccer Championship and Tahiti in the 2013 OFC Beach Soccer Championship.
Brazil and Portugal are the only teams to win a world title before and after FIFA began sanctioning the sport.