FIFA has hiked its top ticket price for the World Cup final to USD 10,990 during the glitch-hampered reopening of sales after the 48-team field for this year’s tournament was finalised. The previous price was USD 8,680.

FIFA’s category 2 tickets for the July 19 game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, were USD 7,380, up from USD 5,575, and category 3 cost USD 5,785, an increase of USD 4,185. Tickets were listed for 17 of the 72 group-stage matches by Wednesday night, and none of the knockout stage games.

Soccer’s governing body is using dynamic pricing for the tournament, which will be played in 11 US cities plus three in Mexico and two in Canada.

Only USD 2,735 tickets, the highest-priced seats, were available by evening for the US opener on June 12 against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and the price was unchanged from December. No tickets were listed for the Americans’ June 19 game against Australia at Seattle or their June 25 match against Turkey at Inglewood.

Only USD 2,985 seats were available by Wednesday evening for the tournament opener between Mexico and Saudi Arabia on June 11 in Mexico City, up from USD 2,355 in December. And only USD 2,240 tickets were available for Canada’s first game on June 12 against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto, an increase from USD 2,170.

Soccer’s governing body did not announce which games and price categories were available, leaving potential ticket buyers to search for themselves on a FIFA ticketing site that often took hours to enter.

Some people who clicked on what FIFA called its “last-minute sales phase” when sales opened at 11 am EDT were directed into a queue for “PMA late qualifier supporters sales phase,” aimed at a segment of fans for the six nations who earned berths on Tuesday.

FIFA did not have an explanation for why the link misdirection occurred, but said around noon that the links were working properly. It then said that not all remaining tickets were being put on sale for the 104 games to be played in the US, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19, and that additional tickets will be released on a rolling basis.

This was the fifth phase of ticket sales following a Visa presale draw from September 10-19, an early ticket draw from October 27-31, a random selection draw from December 11 to January 13, and an unscheduled 48-hour availability in late February.

FIFA said this phase, which will remain open through the tournament, marked the first time a specific seat location could be purchased rather than a request for a ticket in a category.

For the month-long sales phase after the December 5 draw, tickets were priced at USD 140 to USD 8,680. After complaints, FIFA said USD 60 tickets would be made available to each participating national federation for their most loyal supporters, an amount likely to be 400-700 per team for each match.

“The employment of dynamic ticket pricing for the 2026 FWC starkly contrasts with FIFA’s core mission to promote the accessible and inclusive promotion and development of soccer globally,” 69 Democratic members of Congress wrote in a March 10 letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

“Despite host cities’ cooperation in bringing the vision of the largest, most global World Cup in history to fruition, the consequences of dynamic pricing will make the 2026 FWC the most financially exclusionary and inaccessible to date.”

FIFA also has its own resale market, collecting 15 per cent from both the buyer and seller.