[1] The tournament was expanded from 16 to 22 teams for the 2019 edition, with the addition of a preliminary round.

The six new entrants were five teams from Central America, which had previously directly qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League, and a team from Canada playing in the Canadian Premier League, bringing the total number of teams playing in the CONCACAF League/Champions League from 31 to 32.

[2][3] Saprissa defeated Motagua in the final to win their first CONCACAF League.

Herediano were the title holders, but were eliminated by Waterhouse in the Round of 16.

As the inaugural 2019 Canadian Premier League season was not scheduled to finish by the start of the 2019 CONCACAF League, the Canadian CONCACAF League berth for this season was decided by the winners of the home and away matches in the Canadian Premier League spring season between FC Edmonton, Forge FC, and Valour FC, the three "inaugural teams" of the Canadian Premier League.

[4] They were the second Canadian representative included in CONCACAF competitions, besides the Canadian Championship champions which qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League.

All of the leagues of Central America employed a split season with two tournaments in one season, so the following teams qualified for the CONCACAF League: If teams from any Central American associations were excluded, they were replaced by teams from other Central American associations, with the associations chosen based on results from previous CONCACAF League and CONCACAF Champions League tournaments.

Since 2018, the CONCACAF Caribbean Club Championship was open to teams from professional leagues, where they could qualify as champions or runners-up of their respective association's league in the previous season, while the CONCACAF Caribbean Club Shield was open to teams from non-professional leagues, where they could qualify as champions of their respective association's league in the previous season.

The draw for the 2019 CONCACAF League was held on 30 May 2019, at 20:00 Eastern Time (18:00 local time), at the Grand Tikal Futura Hotel in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

The seeding of teams was based on the CONCACAF Club Index.

The CONCACAF Club Index, instead of ranking each team, was based on the on-field performance of the teams that had occupied the respective qualifying slots in the previous five editions of the CONCACAF League and CONCACAF Champions League.

To determine the total points awarded to a slot in any single edition of the CONCACAF League or CONCACAF Champions League, CONCACAF used the following formula: Teams qualified for the CONCACAF League based on criteria set by their association (e.g., tournament champions, runners-up, cup champions), resulting in an assigned slot (e.g., CRC1, CRC2) for each team.

In the semi-finals, the matchups were determined as follows: The semi-finalists in each tie which had the better performance in previous rounds (excluding preliminary round) hosted the second leg.

Starting from the round of 16, teams were ranked based on their results (excluding preliminary round) using the following criteria (Regulations II, Article I):[3] Based on the ranking, the top six teams, i.e., champions, runners-up, both losing semi-finalists, and best two losing quarter-finalists, qualified for the 2020 CONCACAF Champions League.