World Cup 2026 Schedule Drop: Matchups, Ticket Prices, and More on the Globe's Largest Sporting Event
The full match schedule for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was unveiled on Saturday, December 6, locking in dates, venues,…
The full match schedule for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was unveiled on Saturday, December 6, locking in dates, venues, and opponents for the expanded 48-team tournament across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The competition will run from June 11 to July 19, 2026, with the Final set for MetLife Stadium in New York/New Jersey.
Almost as soon as the schedule was announced, the resale market reacted.
Data compiled on Saturday by secondary marketplace TicketClub.com, which published a full match-by-match pricing breakdown for all 104 games, shows that demand at the very top of the market is already extreme, particularly for the final, semifinals, and early matches involving the host nations.
Final at MetLife Stadium Already Over $22K on Resale
Ticket Club’s snapshot of the secondary market, taken shortly after the schedule reveal, shows the World Cup Final at MetLife Stadium as the runaway pricing leader:
- Final – MetLife Stadium (Match 104): $22,319 average resale price per ticket
Other late-stage fixtures in giant U.S. venues are also posting big numbers:
- Semifinal – AT&T Stadium (Dallas area, Match 101): $7,046 average
- Semifinal – Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, Match 102): $5,815 average
- Quarterfinal – Hard Rock Stadium (Miami area, Match 99): $4,465 average
Those figures represent average list prices across resale inventory available on TicketClub.com at the time of publication. As more tickets hit both the primary and secondary markets — and as fans lock in travel plans across three host countries — those averages are likely to move, but they offer an early sense of just how expensive the top of the event already is.
Group Stage: Mexico Opener Leads, Hosts Drive Premiums
Ticket Club’s group-stage snapshot reinforces the same pattern: host nations and heavyweights at home are driving early surges.
The single most expensive group match identified in Ticket Club’s report is the opening game in Mexico City:
- Mexico vs South Africa – Estadio Azteca, June 11 (Match 01): $6,583 average ticket price
Other host-nation fixtures carrying a substantial premium include:
Mexico
- Mexico vs South Korea – Guadalajara (Match 28): $3,546 average
- Mexico vs Playoff D – Mexico City (Match 53): $3,685 average
United States
- USA vs Paraguay – Los Angeles (Match 04): $3,018 average
- USA vs Australia – Seattle (Match 32): $2,815 average
- USA vs Playoff C – Los Angeles (Match 59): $2,250 average
Canada
- Canada vs Playoff A – Toronto (Match 03): $3,382 average
- Canada vs Qatar – Vancouver (Match 27): $2,135 average
- Canada vs Switzerland – Vancouver (Match 51): $2,372 average
At the “value” end of the chart, even the lowest-priced games Ticket Club identified are still deep into four figures:
- Tunisia vs Netherlands – Kansas City (Match 58): $1,116 average
- Morocco vs Haiti – Atlanta (Match 50): $1,435 average
- Qatar vs Switzerland – San Francisco Bay Area (Match 08): $1,459 average
- Germany vs Curaçao – Houston (Match 10): $1,512 average
- Playoff B vs Tunisia – Monterrey (Match 12): $1,592 average
Ticket Club highlights Vancouver, Toronto, and Monterrey as offering some of the better relative values overall, with several group matches there priced below early averages seen in U.S. and Mexico City inventory when host nations are not involved.
How FIFA’s Dynamic Pricing and Official Resale Set the Stage
The early resale picture only tells half the story. As TicketNews has reported in recent months, this World Cup is already on track to be the most expensive in history at the primary box office — before the secondary market ever gets involved.
In September, FIFA disclosed that face-value prices for 2026 would start at around $60 for certain group-stage seats and climb to more than $6,700 for Category 1 tickets to the final at MetLife Stadium, the highest official range the tournament has ever seen.
That represents a massive jump compared to past editions:
- 1994 (USA): roughly $25–$475
- Qatar 2022: roughly $69–$1,600 equivalent
On top of that, FIFA announced that the 2026 event would use “variable” or dynamic pricing for a wide swath of inventory — adjusting prices up or down based on demand and remaining supply, mirroring a system that has already proven contentious in U.S. concert and sports ticketing.
As detailed in earlier TicketNews coverage, that strategy helped fuel:
- Early spikes on U.S. Men’s National Team group games and knockout-round contests in the first sales windows.
- Price jumps of hundreds of dollars per seat within days for some matches.
- Fan outrage when the cheapest publicly available final tickets crossed the $6,000 mark before most supporters were even sure who might be playing.
Adding another wrinkle, FIFA has rolled out an official resale platform for 2026 that lifts traditional face-value caps, allowing tickets to be resold at whatever price the market will bear. On that platform, FIFA stands to collect a fee from both buyers and sellers on each resale — roughly 30 percent in total per transaction.
In effect, FIFA will serve as both primary ticketing operator and secondary marketplace provider, participating financially in every price escalation on its own system — even when those surges draw sharp criticism from supporters.
Fans, Economists, and Politicians Push Back
The resulting backlash has been substantial — and not just from supporters.
Fan groups have accused FIFA of abandoning its rhetoric about making football “truly global” in favor of a model that prices ordinary fans out of the stands. Economists and policy analysts have argued that dynamic pricing effectively turns the organizer into “the scalper,” capturing the surplus that used to go to third-party resellers, but also magnifying volatility and inequity.
In New York, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani launched a “Game Over Greed” campaign aimed squarely at 2026 World Cup ticketing. His petition calls on FIFA to roll back dynamic pricing, reinstate resale caps for games in New York/New Jersey, and set aside a meaningful share of tickets at discounted prices for local residents, warning that at current prices, most New Yorkers will be priced out of seeing the event in person.
Critics also continue to point to this year’s FIFA Club World Cup in the United States as a cautionary tale: dynamic pricing initially pushed some seats into the hundreds of dollars, only for prices to collapse into the teens as kickoff approached, leaving large blocks of empty seats even as early buyers were left holding the bag.
That episode, combined with the World Cup’s uncapped official resale exchange and soaring base prices, has fueled concern that the 2026 tournament could see a similar pattern — surging prices early, then aggressive discounting later if demand lags in certain markets or rounds.
In response to growing criticism, FIFA has recently backed away from the idea of using dynamic pricing for every ticket category, promising that some allotments — such as follow-your-team packages — will remain at fixed prices. But the organization has not abandoned the model entirely, and the most coveted matches are still primed for algorithm-driven surging.
What Ticket Club’s Numbers Say in That Context
Set against that backdrop, Ticket Club’s early resale snapshot reads less like a “scalpers gone wild” story and more like a second-layer reflection of already historic face values:
- A $22,319 average for the final sits atop primary price ranges that already climb into the mid-$6,000s for Category 1 seats.
- Group-stage matches in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Toronto are posting secondary averages in the $2,000–$6,500 range — layered on top of primary ticket windows where dynamic pricing has already pushed many categories far above initial “starting from” rates.
- Even the “cheapest” matches Ticket Club is tracking are in the $1,100–$1,600 band, suggesting that the floor for this tournament may be as noteworthy as the ceiling.
Ticket Club operates as a no-fee resale marketplace for its members, with prices set by sellers but without the additional service fees that most competing platforms add at checkout. The company says its members typically save 10–20 percent versus other resale marketplaces when all fees are factored in — an important point of differentiation when service charges on some platforms can stack hundreds of dollars per order on top of already inflated face values.
That doesn’t mean every four- or five-figure listing will find a buyer; as TicketNews has noted before, eye-popping outlier listings in the $20,000–$25,000 range tend to generate headlines more than completed transactions. But Ticket Club’s averages, based on active inventory, provide a useful barometer of where the real market currently sits for fans trying to plan ahead.
Tournament Timeline and Where to Find Full Match-by-Match Data
The 2026 World Cup calendar is structured as follows:
- Group Stage: June 11–27
- Round of 32: June 28–July 3
- Round of 16: July 4–7
- Quarterfinals: July 9–11
- Semifinals: July 14–15
- Third-Place Match: July 18 (Hard Rock Stadium, Miami area)
- World Cup Final: July 19 (MetLife Stadium, New York/New Jersey)
Ticket Club and other resale websites like StubHub already have inventory available for all 104 matches.
For fans, the big question between now and kickoff may not be whether they can find a seat — millions of tickets will be issued across 16 host cities — but when to buy in a landscape shaped by high face values, algorithm-driven pricing, and an official resale exchange that puts FIFA in the middle of every transaction.
Against that backdrop, Ticket Club’s no-fee model and early pricing snapshot offer a rare bit of clarity: whatever happens on the official platform, the secondary market is already signaling that attending World Cup 2026 in person will be an expensive proposition, especially for those chasing marquee matches or following their team across North America.
World Cup ’26 Group Stage Ticket Prices by Game
Information courtesy of Ticket Club. TicketNews readers can receive a free 1-year membership by signing up using code TICKETNEWS – (TicketNews may receive a commission on any sales that occur from readers who set up accounts and purchase tickets)
| Date | Matchup | Location | Average Ticket Price | Shop for Tickets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 11 | Mexico vs South Africa (Match 01) | Mexico City | $6,583 | Shop Tickets |
| June 11 | South Korea vs Playoff D (Match 02) | Guadalajara | $2,272 | Shop Tickets |
| June 12 | Canada vs Playoff A (Match 03) | Toronto | $3,382 | Shop Tickets |
| June 12 | USA vs Paraguay (Match 04) | Los Angeles | $3,018 | Shop Tickets |
| June 13 | Brazil vs Morocco (Match 07) | New York/New Jersey | $1,938 | Shop Tickets |
| June 13 | Australia vs Playoff C (Match 06) | Vancouver | $1,591 | Shop Tickets |
| June 13 | Haiti vs Scotland (Match 05) | Boston | $2,395 | Shop Tickets |
| June 13 | Qatar vs Switzerland (Match 08) | San Francisco Bay Area | $1,459 | Shop Tickets |
| June 14 | Germany vs Curaçao (Match 10) | Houston | $1,512 | Shop Tickets |
| June 14 | Ivory Coast vs Ecuador (Match 09) | Philadelphia | $2,378 | Shop Tickets |
| June 14 | Netherlands vs Japan (Match 11) | Dallas | $1,935 | Shop Tickets |
| June 14 | Playoff B vs Tunisia (Match 12) | Monterrey | $1,592 | Shop Tickets |
| June 15 | Spain vs Cape Verde (Match 14) | Atlanta | $1,593 | Shop Tickets |
| June 15 | Saudi Arabia vs Uruguay (Match 13) | Miami | $2,220 | Shop Tickets |
| June 15 | Belgium vs Egypt (Match 16) | Seattle | $2,162 | Shop Tickets |
| June 15 | Iran vs New Zealand (Match 15) | Los Angeles | $2,229 | Shop Tickets |
| June 16 | France vs Senegal (Match 17) | New York/New Jersey | $2,142 | Shop Tickets |
| June 16 | Playoff 2 vs Norway (Match 18) | Boston | $1,951 | Shop Tickets |
| June 16 | Argentina vs Algeria (Match 19) | Kansas City | $2,111 | Shop Tickets |
| June 16 | Austria vs Jordan (Match 20) | San Francisco Bay Area | $2,127 | Shop Tickets |
| June 17 | England vs Croatia (Match 22) | Dallas | $2,290 | Shop Tickets |
| June 17 | Ghana vs Panama (Match 21) | Toronto | $3,580 | Shop Tickets |
| June 17 | Portugal vs Playoff 1 (Match 23) | Houston | $2,097 | Shop Tickets |
| June 17 | Uzbekistan vs Colombia (Match 24) | Mexico City | $3,244 | Shop Tickets |
| June 18 | Playoff D vs South Africa (Match 25) | Atlanta | $1,318 | Shop Tickets |
| June 18 | Switzerland vs Playoff A (Match 26) | Los Angeles | $1,666 | Shop Tickets |
| June 18 | Canada vs Qatar (Match 27) | Vancouver | $2,135 | Shop Tickets |
| June 18 | Mexico vs South Korea (Match 28) | Guadalajara | $3,546 | Shop Tickets |
| June 19 | Brazil vs Haiti (Match 29) | Philadelphia | $2,329 | Shop Tickets |
| June 19 | Scotland vs Morocco (Match 30) | Boston | $1,824 | Shop Tickets |
| June 19 | Playoff C vs Paraguay (Match 31) | San Francisco Bay Area | $1,586 | Shop Tickets |
| June 19 | USA vs Australia (Match 32) | Seattle | $2,815 | Shop Tickets |
| June 20 | Germany vs Ivory Coast (Match 33) | Toronto | $1,954 | Shop Tickets |
| June 20 | Ecuador vs Curacao (Match 34) | Kansas City | $1,869 | Shop Tickets |
| June 20 | Netherlands vs Playoff B (Match 35) | Houston | $1,795 | Shop Tickets |
| June 20 | Tunisia vs Japan (Match 36) | Monterrey | $1,566 | Shop Tickets |
| June 21 | Spain vs Saudi Arabia (Match 38) | Atlanta | $1,906 | Shop Tickets |
| June 21 | Uruguay vs Cape Verde (Match 37) | Miami | $1,907 | Shop Tickets |
| June 21 | Belgium vs Iran (Match 39) | Los Angeles | $2,285 | Shop Tickets |
| June 21 | New Zealand vs Egypt (Match 40) | Vancouver | $2,288 | Shop Tickets |
| June 22 | France vs Playoff 2 (Match 42) | Philadelphia | $1,815 | Shop Tickets |
| June 22 | Norway vs Senegal (Match 41) | New York/New Jersey | $2,506 | Shop Tickets |
| June 22 | Argentina vs Austria (Match 43) | Dallas | $3,040 | Shop Tickets |
| June 22 | Jordan vs Algeria (Match 44) | San Francisco Bay Area | $2,107 | Shop Tickets |
| June 23 | England vs Ghana (Match 45) | Boston | $2,147 | Shop Tickets |
| June 23 | Panama vs Croatia (Match 46) | Toronto | $2,535 | Shop Tickets |
| June 23 | Portugal vs Uzbekistan (Match 47) | Houston | $1,900 | Shop Tickets |
| June 23 | Colombia vs Playoff 1 (Match 48) | Guadalajara | $2,251 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | Scotland vs Brazil (Match 49) | Miami | $1,820 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | Morocco vs Haiti (Match 50) | Atlanta | $1,435 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | Canada vs Switzerland (Match 51) | Vancouver | $2,372 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | Playoff A vs Qatar (Match 52) | Seattle | $1,869 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | Mexico vs Playoff D (Match 53) | Mexico City | $3,685 | Shop Tickets |
| June 24 | South Korea vs South Africa (Match 54) | Monterrey | $1,555 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | Ecuador vs Germany (Match 56) | New York/New Jersey | $1,954 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | Curacao vs Ivory Coast (Match 55) | Philadelphia | $1,893 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | Tunisia vs Netherlands (Match 58) | Kansas City | $1,116 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | Japan vs Playoff B (Match 57) | Dallas | $1,746 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | USA vs Playoff C (Match 59) | Los Angeles | $2,250 | Shop Tickets |
| June 25 | Paraguay vs Australia (Match 60) | San Francisco Bay Area | $1,683 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | Norway vs France (Match 61) | Boston | $1,972 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | Senegal vs Playoff 2 (Match 62) | Toronto | $2,900 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | New Zealand vs Belgium (Match 64) | Vancouver | $2,086 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | Egypt vs Iran (Match 63) | Seattle | $2,473 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | Uruguay vs Spain (Match 66) | Guadalajara | $2,346 | Shop Tickets |
| June 26 | Cape Verde vs Saudi Arabia (Match 65) | Houston | $2,486 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Panama vs England (Match 69) | New York/New Jersey | $2,173 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Croatia vs Ghana (Match 68) | Philadelphia | $1,932 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Jordan vs Argentina (Match 70) | Dallas | $3,040 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Algeria vs Austria (Match 70) | Kansas City | $2,591 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Colombia vs Portugal (Match 71) | Miami | $2,516 | Shop Tickets |
| June 27 | Playoff 1 vs Uzbekistan (Match 72) | Atlanta | $1,551 | Shop Tickets |
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