Denmark, Spain and France have joined Germany in qualifying directly, with the home nations now facing a two-round route to Brazil.
Denmark, Spain and France have joined Germany, who had already qualified, meaning 14 of the 32 teams who will compete next year in Brazil are now known.
AFC (6): Australia, China PR, Korea R, Japan, Philippines, Korea DPR
CAF (4):
CONCACAF (4):
CONMEBOL (3): Brazil, Colombia, Argentina
OFC (1): New Zealand
UEFA (11): Germany, Denmark, France, Spain
It means the home nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will all enter the UEFA play-offs for a second chance to qualify for the tournament.
The play-offs will be played over two rounds, with seven play-off winners qualifying directly for the World Cup. The lowest-ranked play-off winner will instead advance to the FIFA intercontinental play-offs.
There are two paths, with teams split into seeded and unseeded pots before the draw, which will take place in Zurich.
Play-off pots
Path 1 unseeded: Hungary, Greece, Romania, Belarus, Kosovo, Lithuania, Croatia, Kazakhstan
Path 1 seeded: England, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Austria
Path 2 unseeded: Finland, Belgium, Turkey, Czech Republic, Albania, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Israel
Path 2 seeded: Slovenia, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Portugal, Scotland, Wales
Round one will see Path 1 unseeded teams drawn against Path 1 seeded teams, and Path 2 unseeded teams drawn against Path 2 seeded teams.
Round two will then pit a Path 2 winner against a Path 1 winner, leaving open the possibility that the home nations could face each other in either round.
England have paid a heavy price for their 4-0 defeat in Spain. Instead of securing direct qualification and using the autumn to arrange high-level friendlies against teams such as Brazil, the USA or Japan, they must now navigate the UEFA play-offs. Those matches would have been valuable preparation for the World Cup, but England’s route to Brazil is now more complicated than it needed to be.