The 2026 Nations Championship is the inaugural edition of the Nations Championship, an international rugby union competition featuring twelve men's teams. The teams are divided into two pools of six, and play a full round-robin of matches with the teams in the opposing pool across the mid year and end-of-year international windows, with the top teams in each pool advancing to a Nations Championship final in London.[1]
On 17 November 2025, World Rugby confirmed a second competition that would take place concurrently called the World Rugby Nations Cup.[2]
Although promotion and relegation are intended for a future date, there will be no promotion or relegation in the 2026 edition between the Nations Championship and the Nations Cup.
Participants
The following 12 nations are competing in the 2026 Nations Championship.[3][4]
The Nations Championship consists of two geographic pools or conferences; the first, the European conference, consisting of the Six Nations; the second, the 'Rest of the World' conference, consisting of the Rugby Championship teams, plus Fiji and Japan. Over two international windows each team plays all the teams in the opposite pool once, with three games at home and three away.[17] A cumulative north v south trophy will also be contested in this edition.[18]
The standard World Rugby points system applies; teams earn:
4 points for a win
2 points for a draw
0 points for a loss
1 bonus point for scoring 4 or more tries
1 bonus point for losing by fewer than 8 points.
Fiji home games
Fiji were required to reverse their home fixtures as their national stadium, the HFC Bank Stadium, does not meet competition requirements. Stadiums of the tournament are required to be 25,000+ seats which the HFC Bank Stadium is just under 10,000 short; in addition, 50% of these must be undercover. Travel logistics and commercial value was also considered for reversing the fixtures.[19] As a result, Fiji will play their home game against Scotland away at Murrayfield while Wales and England opted to host Fiji at Cardiff City F.C.'s Cardiff City Stadium and Everton F.C.'s Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium respectively.[20]
Championship division: Tables
The below shows the tables for the two conferences.
After the six rounds, a finals series will be contested over three days with each team matched against its equivalently ranked team in the other pool to decide placements.[22][21] All finals in 2026 are to be held at Twickenham Stadium in London, from 27 to 29 November.[21]
Takuro Matsunaga (17)
Cam Roigard 
Jac Morgan 
Argentina
Australia
England
France
Fiji
Ireland
Italy
Scotland
South Africa