The 2026 FIFA World Cup starts June 11. No cable? No problem — there are more ways to stream this tournament than any previous edition, including a handful of genuinely free options if you know where to look.
Fox holds the English-language rights in the US, broadcasting 70 matches including every knockout game through the Final. FS1 picks up 34 more. On the Spanish side, Telemundo carries 92 games and Universo the remaining 12. That split matters when you're choosing a streaming plan.
What streaming will actually cost you
The cheapest legitimate route is Fox's own app, Fox One, at $20 per month — straightforward, no upsells, every Fox and FS1 match in one place. That's the play for most people.
Beyond that, your options and their real costs:
- Sling Select — $30/month, covers Fox and FS1
- Fubo Sports plan — $45.99 first month, $55.99 after; 4K streams available for $5/month extra
- DirecTV MySports — $50/month for the first two months gets you what you need
- YouTube TV Sports package — $65/month, Fox and FS1 included
- Hulu with Live TV — $90/month, with Spanish-language add-ons costing extra
- Peacock Premium — $10.99/month for Telemundo and Universo streams only
Fubo offers a 7-day free trial, Hulu gives you 3 days. Neither gets you through the group stage alone, but they're worth stacking strategically around the matches you care most about.
Free options that actually exist
FIFA+ will stream select matches at no cost on its website. FIFA and YouTube struck a deal allowing rights holders to broadcast the first 10 minutes of games plus a limited number of full matches on YouTube. Tubi — Fox's free streaming arm — will show the June 11 Mexico vs. South Africa opener and the June 12 USA vs. Paraguay match for free.
That's not enough to follow the whole tournament for free domestically. But a VPN changes the equation. BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub in the UK, France's TF1 Player and L'Equipe TV, Ireland's RTÉ Player, and Spain's RTVE Play all offer free streams — and a VPN lets you spoof your location to access them. Proton VPN and TunnelBear both have free tiers worth trying, though streaming compatibility can shift without warning.
The full group stage draw
The tournament expands to 48 teams across 12 groups this cycle, hosted across 16 cities in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Here's how the groups shake out:
- Group A: Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Czechia
- Group B: Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar, Switzerland
- Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, Scotland
- Group D: United States, Paraguay, Australia, Türkiye
- Group E: Germany, Curaçao, Ivory Coast, Ecuador
- Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Tunisia
- Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand
- Group H: Spain, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay
- Group I: France, Senegal, Iraq, Norway
- Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan
- Group K: Portugal, Congo DR, Uzbekistan, Colombia
- Group L: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama
The US opens against Paraguay on June 12 at 9 p.m. ET in Los Angeles, then faces Australia on June 19 at 3 p.m. ET in Seattle, and closes group play against Türkiye on June 25 at 10 p.m. ET in LA. Group D is competitive enough that none of those results should be taken for granted — Paraguay and Australia both have tournament pedigree, and Türkiye finished third at Euro 2024.
The third-place match is July 18. The Final is July 19. Six weeks of football. Get your streaming situation sorted before June 11 — the group stage waits for no one.
