Nations League 2026/27

Every summer the tournament packs up and moves: the three-week preliminary phase runs across nine host cities on several continents, each of the 18 teams per gender playing 12 matches before eight of them converge on a single country for a knockout Finals week. That travelling league stage, rather than a fortnight in one arena, is what separates the Volleyball Nations League from the World Championship and the Olympic tournament, which it also outranks in frequency — the VNL is contested every year.

The competition was announced in October 2017 and launched the following season, taking over from the Men's World League, run from 1990 to 2017, and the Women's World Grand Prix. It is organised by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, with separate men's and women's tournaments, and is billed by the FIVB as its premier annual international event.

The entry system has been rebuilt since. For its first seasons the field was split between core teams, whose places were guaranteed, and challenger teams, who could go down; that division was scrapped in 2025, the same year the field grew from 16 to 18 teams per gender. The Challenger Cup, which had supplied promotion, was discontinued in 2024. Now the bottom side in the preliminary standings drops out and is replaced by the highest-ranked team in the FIVB World Rankings that did not take part.

Poland have won the men's title in 2023, 2025 and 2026. Among the women, Italy took the 2022, 2024 and 2025 editions, with Turkey champions in 2023 and 2026.