This article details the qualifying phase for modern pentathlon at the 2020 Summer Olympics (postponed to 2021[1] due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
[2] Host nation Japan has been guaranteed one quota place automatically, while two invitational positions are distributed by the UIPM once the rest of the qualifiers are announced and thereby decided.
[2] The initial distribution of berths to the athletes based on competition results occur between February and September 2019.
Twenty places are determined by the continental championships: one each from Africa and Oceania, five from Asia, eight from Europe, and five from the Americas with a maximum of one quota per NOC (two winners each from NORCECA and South America, and the highest-ranked from the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru).
The remaining six will be awarded based on the pentathlon's world rankings, unless a reallocation of unused berths have been invoked before the deadline.