River Plate were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Independiente del Valle in the round of 16.

The following 38 teams from 11 associations (the 10 CONMEBOL members plus Mexico which were invited to compete) qualified for the tournament:[4] The entry stage is determined as follows: The draw of the tournament was held on 22 December 2015, 20:30 PYST (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in Luque, Paraguay.

The defending champions (River Plate) were automatically placed first in Pot 1 and allocated to Group 1 for the draw.

There is a one-month break between the quarterfinals and semifinals due to the Copa América Centenario held in June.

If still tied, extra time would not be played, and the penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner (Regulations Article 5.2).

The finals were played on a home-and-away two-legged basis, with the higher-seeded team hosting the second leg.

[24] On 2 February, CONMEBOL announced that the prize money paid to each club was doubled from the previous amount.