In this article, the years represent the final tournaments of the European Championship, and are not meant to correspond to the actual dates when the qualification matches were played.

Play-off pairings were introduced as a second opportunity for teams that narrowly miss out on direct qualification.

In 2000, the first-placed teams in the nine qualifying groups as well as the best runner-up progressed directly to the finals, while another four spots were taken by winners of play-offs contested by the remaining runners-up.

The 2012 qualification replicated the format of that of 2000: places were taken by nine group winners and the best runner-up, while the other runners-up determined four more finalists via play-offs, with the two host countries qualifying by default.

In a similar fashion, the 2024 qualifying granted spots to the winners and runners-up of the ten qualifying groups, while this time only the top three divisions of the 2022–23 Nations League formed play-off brackets to determine three more finalists, and the host country got an automatic spot.

[4][5][6] All national teams that are members of UEFA are eligible to enter the qualification for the European Championship.

Due to political changes, a few of the entities have appeared under multiple incarnations (see the footnotes to the below table), and the East Germany team is now defunct.

Saarland, a former UEFA member, merged into West Germany in 1957 and therefore did not enter the qualifiers of any European Championships.

Note that this order does not represent any official rankings, and qualification tournaments are not direct competitions between all teams.