2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)

The Asian section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification acts as qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Qatar, for national teams which are members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Apart from Qatar, who qualified automatically as hosts, a total of 4.5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament are available for AFC teams.

The qualification process involves four rounds, where the first two rounds double as the qualification for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. Despite qualifying as hosts, Qatar are participating in these first two rounds to seek Asian Cup qualification. The first two rounds also act as qualifiers for the 2020 AFC Solidarity Cup.

Format
The qualification structure is as follows:
 * First round: 12 teams (ranked 35–46) played home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.
 * Second round: 40 teams (ranked 1–34 and six first-round winners) were divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification as well as qualify for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup finals. Should Qatar finish as group winners or one of the best four runners-up, the fifth-best runners-up will take their place in the third round.
 * Third round: 12 teams which will have advanced from the second round will be divided into two groups of six teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two teams of each group will qualify for the World Cup, and the third-placed teams will advance to the fourth round.
 * Fourth round: The two third-placed teams from the third round will play home and away over two legs. The winner will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Entrants
All 46 FIFA-affiliated nations from the AFC entered qualification. The FIFA World Rankings of April 2019 were used to determine which nations would compete in the first round. For seeding in the second round and third round draws, the most recent FIFA Rankings prior to those draws will be used.

Due to the joint format of the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers, both Qatar (as the host nation of the 2022 World Cup) and China (as the host nation of the 2023 Asian Cup) will also enter the second round of Asian Cup qualifiers.

Timor-Leste was banned from participating in the Asian Cup qualification after being found to have fielded a total of 12 ineligible players in 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification matches among other competitions. However, as FIFA did not ban them from the World Cup qualifiers, Timor-Leste was allowed to enter the competition, but was ineligible to qualify for the Asian Cup.

Schedule
The schedule of the competition is expected to be as follows.

The inter-confederation play-offs are scheduled to be played in March 2022.

Second round
The draw for the second round was held on 17 July 2019 at 17:00 MST (UTC+8), at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The seeding was based on the FIFA World Rankings of June 2019 (shown in parentheses below).

Third round
The third round consists of two groups of six teams. The first two teams in each group will qualify for the World Cup. The two third-placed teams proceed to the fourth round.

Fourth round
The two third-placed teams in each group from the third round will play against each other home-and-away over two legs to determine which team advances to the inter-confederation play-offs.

The order of legs will be announced during the draw for the third round.

Inter-confederation play-offs
The inter-confederation play-offs format is expected to be announced at a later date. Matches are scheduled to be played in March 2022.

Qualified teams
The following teams from AFC qualified for the final tournament.


 * 1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.