In the Central American Zone, four UNCAF member national teams entered the qualifying competition, hosted by Panama.

[1] In the Caribbean Zone, 19 CFU member national teams entered the qualifying competition, consisting of two stages.

The draw of the qualifying competition was held on 6 June 2017, 10:00 UTC−4, at the CONCACAF headquarters in Miami Beach, Florida.

[2] Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Guyana, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were automatically seeded in Groups A–E respectively as hosts of each first round group, while the remaining 14 teams were seeded based on the results of the previous two editions of the qualifying competition.

Any of the top five-ranked teams (Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Bermuda) could not be drawn into the same group.