From Vancouver to Mexico City to Miami, the 2026 World Cup is poised to take over North America, with one notable exception: The United States’ capital city. The joint bid of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, was one of six that didn’t make the cut on Thursday, when Fifa announced the 16 cities to host matches in the global sport spectacle four years from now.
Fifa officials were contrite in passing over the bid, after president Gianni Infantino declared this had been the most competitive process for cities to host World Cup matches.
“It’s been an incredibly competitive process. All the cities have been amazing. This was a very, very difficult choice,” Fifa’s chief competitions & events officer Colin Smith told reporters.
The cities in the US which will host World Cup matches are Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Toronto and Vancouver will host matches in Canada, while Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey will be the hosting cities in Mexico.
Washington, D.C., was one of nine venues for the 1994 World Cup, the last time the US hosted the global mega-event. Since the first World Cup in 1930, only two capital cities (or their immediate areas) have not hosted matches: Bonn, West Germany, in 1974, and Tokyo in 2002. Ottawa was not under consideration for Canada in 2026.
