Thirty-six athletes are eligible to qualify for each of the two events; a maximum of two per gender from any nation. Qualification methods are the same for both the men's and women's events. The host nation
Japan has been guaranteed a single place each in the men's and women's events, while two invitational places will be allocated by UIPM once the rest of the qualifiers were decided. Between February and August 2019, the initial distribution of quotas to the athletes has taken place based on the competition results. Five continental championships afforded twenty places each per gender: one each from Africa and Oceania, five from Asia, eight from Europe, and five from the Americas with a maximum of one quota per NOC (winners from NORCECA and South America, and top three from the
2019 Pan American Games in
Lima,
Peru). Qualified athletes will also be the winner of the 2019 UIPM World Cup final (held in Tokyo from June 27 to 30) and the top three finishers at the World Championships in
Budapest, Hungary, held from September 3 to 9, 2019. The top three ranked athletes, not qualified by any means, were awarded a place at the 2020 UIPM World Championships in
Xiamen, China, while the remaining seven were based on the pentathlon's world rankings as of June 1, 2020. ==Participating nations ==