In addition to host nation Japan, eleven women's national teams will qualify from six separate continental confederations. The Organising Committee for FIFA Competitions ratified the distribution of spots at their meeting on 14 September 2017. For the first time, as per the agreement between the four British football associations for the women's team, Great Britain attempted to qualify for the Olympics through England's performance in the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. The team's only previous appearance was in the 2012 tournament, in which they qualified automatically as hosts. Great Britain succeeded in qualifying, as England were among the three best European teams. Scotland also qualified for the World Cup but, under the agreement whereby the highest ranked home nation was nominated to compete for the purposes of Olympic qualification, their performance was not be taken into account.
Venues
The tournament will be held in seven venues across six cities:
The women's tournament is a full international tournament with no restrictions on age. Each team has to submit a squad of 18 players, two of whom must be goalkeepers. Each team can also name a list of four alternate players, who can replace any player in the squad in case of injury during the tournament.
Match officials
In June 2020, FIFA approved the use of the video assistant referee system for the tournament.
Draw
The twelve teams will be drawn into three groups of four teams. The hosts Japan are automatically seeded into Pot 1 and assigned to position E1, while the remaining teams are seeded into their respective pots based on the FIFA Women's World Rankings released on 27 March 2020. No group can contain more than one team from each confederation. As Great Britain are not a FIFA member and therefore do not have a ranking, their seeding method will be decided by FIFA.
Group stage
The competing countries will be divided into three groups of four teams, denoted as groups E, F and G to avoid confusion with the groups of the men's tournament. Teams in each group will play one another in a round-robin basis, with the top two teams of each group and the [|two best third-placed teams] advancing to the quarter-finals. All times are local, JST.
Tiebreakers
The ranking of teams in the group stage is determined as follows:
In the knockout stage, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, extra time is played and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner. ;Combinations of matches in the quarter-finals The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which two third-placed teams will qualify for the quarter-finals:
