[2][3] Bayern Munich, who had been runners-up in the previous season, beat Bundesliga rivals Borussia Dortmund 2–1 to win their fifth title in the competition.

As this spot in the play-off round was vacated, the following change to the default allocation system was made to compensate:[9][10] League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses.

[11][12] All draws were held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland unless stated otherwise.

[14] In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2012 UEFA club coefficients,[15][16][17] and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties.

The losing teams in both sections entered the Europa League play-off round.

The losing teams in both sections entered the Europa League group stage.

Montpellier, Nordsjælland and Málaga made their debut appearances in the group stage.

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

A moment of silence was held before the Borussia Dortmund v Shakhtar Donetsk second leg to commemorate the victims of the crash of South Airlines Flight 8971, which had been filled mostly with football fans heading for the match.

Source:[28] For the 2012–13 season, UEFA awarded €2.1 million to each team in the play-off round.

For reaching the group stage, UEFA awarded a base fee of €8.6 million.