[1] The event is typically held across a three-day span in April or May, featuring preliminary competitions, semi-finals and finals.

A newly opened (2023) cheerleading gym from Queensland Australia became the first team in history to globe at Worlds in their first cheer season.

For cheerleading teams, a paid bid is designed to cover all competition expenses, including lodging, transportation and registration fees to compete, up to a maximum of $650 per athlete, and for up to two coaches.

For the 2023–2024 season, there are 35 bid-qualifying events within the United States at which a team can win a bid to the 2024 Dance Worlds.

In other words, an athlete is only allowed to represent one team in either cheer or one club in dance when competing at Worlds.

USASF and IASF provide slightly differing descriptions of these styles, describing their expectations of routines entered within these categories: and skills.

All styles within the category were judges against each other, with the emphasis placed on choreography, proper technical execution, visual effect, creativity, staging and team uniformity.

[25] However, the dance divisions expanded with the open hip hop category now splitting into all-girl and coed for teams containing 2 or more males.

[40] In all international divisions where 11 or more US teams were entered, Worlds Trial preliminaries were held to advance only the top 10 to semi-finals.

For the international and junior dance divisions, a maximum of 3 of the highest-scoring teams from each country progressed from the semi-finals to the finals.

[43] A preliminary round was held for U.S. based dance teams entered in the International Open Coed Hip Hop division, titled U.S. Worlds Trials.

This meant that an athlete who was 13, but turned 14 before December 31, 2012, was eligible to compete at the 2012 Cheerleading and Dance Worlds in the international open categories that had a minimum age of 14.

[56] Dance preliminaries were also held for all U.S. teams entering in the international open coed hip hop division, known as the U.S. World Trials.

[56] This year saw an alteration in the crossover rules, with an athlete now allowed to perform up to four times in dance divisions representing the same program.

[66] CheerForce (San Diego) - Nfinity & Top Gun All Stars (Miami) - OO5 The 2020 Cheerleading and Dance Worlds were originally scheduled to take place April 24–27, 2020.

[67] Before announcing the cancellation, USASF had sent an email to gym owners and coaches exploring the possibility of postponing the event until the last week of June 2020, which ultimately did not go ahead.

However, by May 2020, it became apparent that would not be viable, leading to IASF director, Les Stella, issuing an official notice of cancellation.

At the time, they also announced they would be extending the junior division ages a year, in order for any 2020 IASF junior-aged athlete to be eligible to compete in 2021.

[69][70] Controversy broke out surrounding the USASF cancellation due to the news being leaked before a public announcement.

USASF sent a confidential email to gym/studio owners and coaches the night before a planned public announcement, explaining their cancellation decision, with the intent of allowing gym owners and coaches to disseminate that information among their worlds athletes and families before the public was aware.

This was the first that some athletes and families had heard of the cancellation, as their programs had not yet informed them, causing wide-scale controversy and confusion in the time before USASF made their announcement.

For 2021, the level changes that had been intended to be implemented for IASF governed cheerleading divisions at the cancelled 2020 event were enacted.

[73] Crossover rules were altered for this year as an exception to the normal rule, allowing crossover of athletes between dance and cheer teams, allowing an athlete to compete in both The Cheerleading Worlds and The Dance Worlds for the first time in the event's history.

[75] Cheer Athletics Charlotte - RoyalCats & Top Gun All Stars Miami - Double O Stars Vipers San Antonio - Anacondas & USA Starz - Reign With the aim of making some level of participation available for athletes around the globe, IASF announced in February 2021 that they were working to secure dates in September 2021 for the IASF Worlds Championship events for both cheerleading and dance.

[77] However, it was announced in June 2021 that due to ongoing restrictions and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IASF Worlds would take place virtually in 2021.

[78] Due to the ongoing impact, the announcement was made by IASF in July that they would be hosting the event virtually on October 1–2, 2021, with teams submitting videos of a "semi-final" and "finals" performance taken inside of a consecutive three-day window via the CheerMatch app, that would be scored by the judges.

Level 7 Cheerleading teams were not required to earn a bid to enter, with it open to all, and no substitute rule and regulations were enforced at this event.

[86] IASF announced in May 2018 that they would be applying a "full top uniform" rule from the 2021 Cheerleading Worlds event onwards for teams in the international IASF-governed divisions, however, this was pushed to 2022 as a result of the pandemic.

This rule change was put in place in an attempt to promote a more globally athletic image of cheer.

[12] The semi-final round for the international open all-girl non-tumbling level 6 and international open coed non-tumbling level 6 divisions were declared the U.S. world trials, including only paid bid U.S. teams and the top 10 U.S. at large-bid teams from the preliminary round.