This is the first season played under a new format, which replaced the 32-team group stage with a 36-team league phase.

[1] This increases the total number of matches played in the competition (excluding qualifying rounds) from 141 to 189.

[4] Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below: The information here reflects the ongoing suspension of Russia in European football, and so the following changes to the default access were made: As the Europa League title holders (Atalanta) qualified for the Champions League via their domestic league's standard berth allocation, the following changes to the default access list were made: The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round: The third qualifying round was divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

Compared to past seasons, one exclusive week was introduced where both Wednesday and Thursdays were matchdays, held on 25 and 26 September.

The losers were transferred to the Conference League Main Path second qualifying round.

The winners of the ties advanced to the Main Path third qualifying round.

The losers were transferred to the Conference League Main Path third qualifying round.

The 36 teams were manually drawn and then automated software digitally drew their eight different opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones away.

Teams ranked from 25th to 36th were eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League.

In the knockout phase, teams will play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

In the knockout phase, there is no country protection, with teams from the same association able to face each other in any round.