The Tour began in Liège on 3 July and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 25 July.
The first 14 teams in the UCI ranking at 31 January 2004 were automatically invited.
Initially the organisers had an option for a 22nd team, which would be Kelme, but after Jesús Manzano exposed doping use in that team, Kelme was not invited, and the race started with 21 teams of nine cyclists.
[2] Qualified teams Invited teams "DNF" indicates that a rider did not finish the 2004 Tour de France.
"DNS" indicates that a rider did not start.