The competition began on 4 February and is scheduled to end on 29 November 2025.
The following 47 teams from the 10 CONMEBOL member associations qualified for the tournament: The entry stage is determined as follows: The schedule of the competition is as follows:[12] The draw for the qualifying stages was held on 19 December 2024, 12:00 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in Luque, Paraguay.
Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same tie, excluding the three winners of the first stage, which were seeded in Pot 2 and whose identity was not known at the time of the draw, and could be drawn into the same tie with another team from the same association.
[13] In the qualifying stages, each tie is played on a home-and-away two-legged basis.
If tied on aggregate, extra time will not be played, and a penalty shoot-out will be used to determine the winner (Regulations Article 2.4.3).