[3] Due to the withdrawal of Guam and the suspension of Kuwait, the AFC invited both Nepal and Macau, the top two teams of the 2016 AFC Solidarity Cup, to re-enter 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification as replacements in order to maintain 24 teams in the third round of the competition.

[10] The draw for the third round was held on 23 January 2017, 16:00 GST (UTC+4), in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

[12] They were seeded using the January 2017 FIFA World Rankings (indicated in parentheses below).

[10][14][15] The national teams which eventually qualified are presented in bold.

If tied on points, tiebreakers were applied in the following order (Regulations Article 9.3):[3]