The qualification process for the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup began on 14 February 2015.
Following the 2014 Women's Rugby World Cup, seven teams received an automatic qualification berth - these berths being given to the top seven teams (England, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States and Australia).
The top two teams from the combined 2015 and 2016 Women's Six Nations Championship, Italy and Wales, qualified directly.
[2] Scotland and the winner of Round Two, Spain, played a home-and-away series to determine the final European qualifier.
A third team, Fiji, defeated Papua New Guinea 37–10 in the Oceania qualifier to move on to the repechage.