[1] Apart from Bulgaria, 46 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition.

The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:[4] The schedule of each group is as follows, with two rest days between each matchday (Regulations Article 20.04):[4] In the qualifying round and elite round, teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 14.01 and 14.02):[4] To determine the four best third-placed teams from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place are discarded.

The following criteria are applied (Regulations Article 15.01):[4] The draw for the qualifying round was held on 24 November 2017, 09:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

The draw for the elite round was held on 23 November 2018, 11:40 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

[12] Germany and Spain, which received byes to the elite round, were automatically seeded into Pot A.