Contrary to previous years, no teams were automatically placed into the World Cup, so all FIBA Europe nations had to participate in qualification.
Teams that did not manage or did not apply to make EuroBasket 2017 played in the pre-qualifiers round.
The allocation of teams from the first round was determined on 24 August 2017, with the only restriction of not drawing Serbia and Kosovo in the same group.
The bottom team from each group was eliminated from the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup and transferred to the Second round of EuroBasket 2021.
The first one took place in Guangzhou on 6 May 2017 and involved only 24 teams directly qualified to this round as EuroBasket 2017 participants.
The top three teams from each group qualified for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.