[1] The national teams from a total of 45 UEFA member associations entered the qualifying competition.

Denmark, Gibraltar, Sweden and Wales made their FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifying debuts.

If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of a mini-tournament, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:[3] In the play-offs, the team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualified for the final tournament.

If no goals were scored during extra time, the tie was decided by penalty shoot-out.

In the preliminary round draw, the teams which were pre-selected as hosts could not be drawn in the same group, while in the main round draw, the teams which were pre-selected as hosts were drawn from a separate pot, while being placed in their groups according to their seeding positions.

The draw for the play-offs was held on 12 February 2016, 12:00 CET (UTC+1), at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belgrade, Serbia.