64 teams contested, beginning on 29 August 2020 with the first of two preliminary rounds, and ending on 18 April 2021 at the final played at De Kuip in Rotterdam.

The same scheme is also used when a team reaches the semi-finals of the district cup but wins promotion to the Derde Divisie in the same season (and by that qualifying in two ways for the KNVB Cup) On 14 October 2020, the KNVB announced that all first round matches involving amateur teams would be postponed until 1 and 2 December as a result of new measures taken by the government to stop the spread of the virus.

[5] The draw was conducted by Martijn van Oers, player of DWOW, the lowest ranked club that qualified for the Cup this season.

At the time of the draw, only Ajax and Feyenoord were assured of that, so the winners of match 27 in the first preliminary round (who turned out to be Quick) and SV TEC were drawn a bye to compensate.

[7] On 19 December 2020, the KNVB already performed a draw to determine which teams would be playing at home in the quarter-finals for organizational reasons.

[8] On 23 January 2021, the KNVB performed a draw to determine which teams would be playing at home in the semi-finals for organizational reasons.