[1][2][3] The competition was linked with the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League, giving countries a secondary route to qualify for the final tournament.

For the first time since 1976, no team automatically qualified for the UEFA European Championship as the host country.

[4] The national teams of all 55 UEFA member associations entered the qualifying process, with Kosovo taking part for the first time.

The qualifiers were played on double matchdays in March, June, September, October, and November 2019.

Unlike previous editions, the participants of the play-offs were not decided based on results from the qualifying group stage.

The four play-off path winners joined the twenty teams that had already qualified for the final tournament.

[13] The UEFA Executive Committee approved the use of the video assistant referee system for the play-offs during their meeting in Nyon, Switzerland on 4 December 2019, the first time the technology was used in the qualifying competition.

[17] If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied:[1] Notes To determine the overall rankings of the European Qualifiers, results against teams in sixth place were discarded and the following criteria were applied:[1] Below was the schedule of the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.

[22] At the meeting, UEFA decided to stage the play-off semi-finals on 8 October 2020, and the finals on 12 November 2020.

[24] The changes to the International Match Calendar for October and November 2020 were approved by the FIFA Council on 25 June 2020.

The four participants of the 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals in June 2019 were placed in a separate pot and drawn into Groups A–D which only had five teams so that they only had to play eight qualifying matches, leaving two free matchdays to play in Nations League Finals.

[1] The following restrictions were also applied with computer assistance:[33] The teams were seeded based on the November 2018 UEFA Nations League overall rankings.

Key The qualifying play-off draw took place on 22 November 2019, 12:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.