[3] North Korea was banned from the tournament due to the sanction on their doping cases in 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

[4] The top two teams from each group advanced to the semifinals of the tournament as well as qualifying for the World Cup.

The qualifying saw a record entry of 25 CAF teams (26 if including final tournament host Namibia).

(28 teams competing for 3 or 4 berths, host nation Canada also qualifies) As with the previous World Cups, the 2014 CONCACAF Women's Championship served as the region's qualification tournament.

A total of 30 teams entered qualifying, with Martinique and Guadeloupe not eligible for World Cup qualification as they are only members of CONCACAF and not FIFA.

[5] The United States and Mexico received byes to the tournament's final round, where they were joined by Costa Rica and Guatemala from Central America and by Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago from the Caribbean zone.

Both finalists and the third placed team qualified automatically to the 2015 Women's World Cup.

The eight lowest teams entered the tournament in the preliminary round and were drawn into two groups of four, played in single round-robin format from 4 to 9 April 2013 in Malta and Lithuania respectively.

The play-off matches were played in home-and-away two-legged format on 25/26 and 29/30 October (semi-finals), and 22/23 and 26/27 November 2014 (finals).

Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, England and France qualified for the World Cup.