[1] Apart from Georgia, 48 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition.

The qualifying competition was planned to consist of two rounds:[4] The schedule of each group was planned as follows, with two rest days between each matchday (Regulations Article 20.04):[4] In the qualifying round and planned elite round, teams were 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 were 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 were discarded.

The following criteria were applied (Regulations Article 15.01):[4] The draw for the qualifying round was held on 23 November 2018, 10:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

The draw for the elite round was held on 29 November 2019, 11:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

On 12 March 2020, UEFA announced that the elite round had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.