Spain, Germany top beach handball nations rankings
Spain and Germany have been the leading beach handball nations both on the men's and the women's side in the major national team events — senior and YAC — over the past three years. Spain top the 2025 men's ranking ahead of Germany, with Hungary looming in third. On the women's side, Germany lead Spain, followed by the third-ranked Netherlands. The rankings serve as a seedings list for the group phase draws in major events in 2026.
Spain's men might have lost the final of the EHF Beach Handball EURO 2025 to Germany, but they stay ahead of the European champions in the current nations ranking. Spain amassed 836 points in the nine events that come into account.
Germany trail by 20 points and are level with Hungary. However, Germany rank second because they have the better results compared to Hungary from the last three major senior events, which is the tiebreaker in case teams finish on the same amount of points.
Croatia, the 2024 world champions and 2025 EURO bronze medallists, and Portugal complete the top five.
Germany, the 2022 and 2024 world champions, edge out reigning European champions Spain by a mere eight points to lead the nations ranking on the women's side: 840 vs 832 points.
The Netherlands on 736 points rank third, well ahead of Nordic rivals Norway (632) and Denmark (488) in fourth and fifth, respectively.
If two or more nations have the same number of points, their ranking position is decided by the best result achieved in the last three major senior tournaments.
The nine tournaments included
The same nine tournament have been included in the men's and the women's ranking. The senior events carry twice as many points as the Younger Age Category ones; for instance, winning gold in a senior event is worth 160 points, in a YAC event 80.
The events counting towards the 2025 rankings are:
- 2023: EHF EURO (senior), YAC 17 EHF EURO, European Games
- 2024: IHF World Championship (senior), EHF Championship, YAC 16 EHF EURO
- 2025: IHF YAC 17 World Championship, YAC 17 EHF EURO, EHF EURO (senior)
The rankings will serve as the basis for the group allocations for the upcoming beach handball events in 2026.
First up is the draw for the YAC17 EHF Beach Handball EURO 2026 and for the EHF Beach Handball Championship 2026, which is scheduled for Thursday 26 February and will be streamed on the Home of Handball YouTube channel.
