A total of 52 teams from 51 of the 55
UEFA member associations entered the tournament, which was a record number of entries and included first-time entrants from Kosovo and San Marino. Each association could enter one team, the winners of their regular top domestic futsal league (or in special circumstances, the runners-up). Moreover, the winners of the
2015–16 UEFA Futsal Cup qualified automatically as title holders, and thus their association could enter a second team. Teams were ranked according to their
UEFA coefficients, computed based on results of the last three seasons, to decide on the round they entered. The top four teams (with the title holders being the automatic top seed) entered the elite round, the next 16 teams (ranked 5–20) entered the main round, and the bottom 32 teams (ranked 21–52) entered the preliminary round. For teams entering the preliminary round or main round, they were assigned a seeding position according to their ranking for the respective draw, with eight teams pre-selected as hosts for the preliminary round and six teams pre-selected as hosts for the main round (marked by
(H) below). The draws for the preliminary round and main round were held on 7 July 2016, 14:00
CEST (
UTC+2), at the UEFA headquarters in
Nyon,
Switzerland. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows: • In the preliminary round, the 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four containing one team from each of the seeding positions 1–4. First, the eight teams which were pre-selected as hosts were drawn from their own designated pot and allocated to their respective group as per their seeding positions. Next, the remaining 24 teams were drawn from their respective pot which were allocated according to their seeding positions. • In the main round, the 24 teams were drawn into six groups of four, either containing one team from each of the seeding positions 1–3 and one group winner from the preliminary round, or containing one team from each of the seeding positions 1–2 and two group winners from the preliminary round. First, the six teams which were pre-selected as hosts were drawn from their own designated pot and allocated to their respective group as per their seeding positions. Next, the remaining 18 teams (including the eight preliminary round winners, whose identity was not known at the time of the draw) were drawn from their respective pot which were allocated according to their seeding positions. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, teams from Azerbaijan/Armenia, Kosovo/Serbia, and Kosovo/Bosnia and Herzegovina would not be drawn into the same group. Should any of the above teams win their preliminary round group and qualify for a main round group with a team they cannot play against, they would be swapped with the next available team in their seeding position following the alphabetical order of the groups. ==Round and draw dates==