Going to North America '26: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

Please update the title, United 2026 is way too generic. Just my 2cents but l'd include the words WC2026 general discussion.

 

We need a dedicated tickets thread so that we can discuss plans. I think you will only need about 1000 applications to have a good shot at tickets.

 

I'll one up you and create 1001 apps . This is gonna be resellers paradise, touts will out in full force. Scary part is Americans are already conditioned to pay 1000% over market. Jut look at the MLS prices for Messi games.

 

Ya l have already written to them about that awful logo .

 

Sad, but probably true. I can't believe people have the energy or money to put in 1000 applications. The benefit: effort and benefit : price ratios just seem terrible!

Oh well, maybe I'll get some good $$ by renting out my place so I can sip margheritas on a beach far far away and come home 35 days later with more money than I left New York with.

 

Sadly none of those matter because prior to 2022, FIFA required a credit card to put in a ticket application. For Qatar, they did not and you saw a balloon to 23.5 million applications for a very low demand World Cup. With 23.5 applications we calculated that applications had a 2-5% chance of being successful for standard games. I cannot imagine there will be anything less than 10x as many applications. So that would drop to .2 - .5% chance per application or even worse.

 

@Dragonlord I think you are spot on for number of applicants for the world cup. but you can cut the number of tickets available in half, sponsors, fifa, and hospitality will take up half at least. I am guessing about just around 3 million tickets available for us normal folks. But each successful app won't just be for 1 ticket, it will be a bunch.

remember, fifa ranks applications, not individual game requests. so each app is very, very, very, likely to either be all successful or all unsuccessful.

So lets say each successful app gets 16 tickets each on average. In previous WCs you could apply for as many as 12 games at 4 or even 6 (Qatar) tickets per game. That means there's just room for just over 200000 winning applications. That would equal 0.4% chance of a winning ticket if there is 53 million applications.

Add in the elephant in the room. Touts. Ask people who bought on the secondary market for FIFA Qatar, what name was on the ticket? Had a lot of Indian and Chinese surnames who bought solely for the secondary market which will be stupid in 2026.... With full digital tickets and a population willing to overpay, I cannot imagine tout demand will be anything but stupid.

 

There are no passport restrictions for applications. In Qatar a lot of Indians applied and resold or tried to resell; first the ticket allocations they had been awarded. Then the actual tickets accounts.
It's going to a be crazy trying to get tickets.

 

And yet...

For Qatar I didn't pay a single tout/reseller/scalper for a ticket and I attended more games than in the previous 4 WCs I had attended, at 13 quite a lot in my book , though meager by the standards of some addicts in this forum, and elsewhere.

And according to the data quoted above, Qatar had more applications than any WC before it.

I am not yet sold on the difficulty of obtaining tickets directly from FIFA. Yes, some teams are going to see crazy demand, but many minnows will likely see much less demand than is being guessed at here.

 

I wonder how they'll do visas for this. Definitely some scrutiny will be put in place.

 

I work in US immigration. FIFA is not getting any special treatment for visas. If you come from a non-esta country be prepared to apply sooner rather than later.

 

Exactly! I have family in Central America waiting on 3 years for a visa… there’s a long line folks.

 

Let's see how deep into 2024 we can keep this thread on the first page of this forum, despite the almost certain fact that no information will be released on ticket prices, ticket selling phases or anything we discuss in here that's on topic until this date in 2025 at the earliest.

 

There’s a rumor that the schedule was released this early because ticket sales will start soon. Hospitality and possibly team specific tickets. FIFA will lock in the money 2.5 years early and make a ton off the interest free loan.

 

3 years for a tourist visa!?

Getting a B1/B2 visa should not difficult for anyone with the means of being able to afford travel +WC.

As bad as they may sound, people who don't fit the profile of a visa approval probably should be prioritizing on more important things before spending thousands of dollars on a sports tournament.

 

Yeah. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/wait-times.html

3 years? Probably Honduran. If you're from Africa or Asia and from countries with super long wait times they are probably gonna assume that you already have a visa. Brazil and Argentina have reasonable wait times. Non esta Europe, reasonable. The bulk of central American fans who are planning to attend are already in the US. The amount of fans affected by this is so small in the US's mind that they have little interest in changing anything even if FIFA cared.

 

I'd be happy to shell out for any form of TST. Having the option for Qatar 2022 on that initial FCFS day to buy the cheaper category TST3 for any team you wanted helped a big deal when I knew I was only going for a week of the group stages, even if later after the draw two of my teams clashed on the same day I still had Argentina too which ended up being one of the more difficult teams to get a ticket for.

For the recent Rugby World Cup (a much smaller scale) I bought my equivalent of a CAT4 TST till the Quarterfinals over 900 days before the tournament started (they sold some during the middle of the pandemic for a Sept/Oct 2023 tournament). Good to take any opportunity to lock it in early when the casuals and fence-sitters can't get their act together to pay or organize themselves that far ahead, and then if the travel really is too much after the group stage draw or doesn't end up being feasible you can give it back to resale platform or offer it to friends.

Really looking forward to this tournament. Would be happy to be sent anywhere if my country qualifies but otherwise have considered trying to get to all three Mexican venues, plus Miami, perhaps Atlanta since I've always been interested in that stadium.