Netball World Cup
The Netball World Cup explained: format, every winner since 1963, the medal table, and the move to a two-year cycle after 2027.
The Netball World Cup is the sport's premier international tournament, organised by World Netball, the sport's global governing body. It has been held every four years since 1963, and was known as the World Netball Championships until it took its current name for the 2015 edition.
Format
Recent tournaments have featured 16 national teams. Teams play preliminary pool stages, then the leading sides move into semi-finals, a bronze medal match and the final, while the remaining teams play off for the lower placings.
The tournament didn't always work this way. Early editions were a single round-robin — at the first tournament in 1963, each of the 11 teams played the other ten, and the final standings decided the medals. Semi-finals and a final were added from 1991.
Who competes
Places are split between automatic qualifiers and regional qualifying tournaments. For the 2023 World Cup, six teams qualified automatically — the hosts plus the five highest-ranked other teams in the World Netball rankings — and the remaining ten places went to two qualifiers from each of World Netball's five regions: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
Every winner
| Year | Host | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | Eastbourne, England | Australia | New Zealand | England |
| 1967 | Perth, Australia | New Zealand | Australia | South Africa |
| 1971 | Kingston, Jamaica | Australia | New Zealand | England |
| 1975 | Auckland, New Zealand | Australia | England | New Zealand |
| 1979 | Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago | Australia, New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago (shared) | — | — |
| 1983 | Singapore | Australia | New Zealand | Trinidad and Tobago |
| 1987 | Glasgow, Scotland | New Zealand | — | Australia and Trinidad and Tobago (shared) |
| 1991 | Sydney, Australia | Australia | New Zealand | Jamaica |
| 1995 | Birmingham, England | Australia | South Africa | New Zealand |
| 1999 | Christchurch, New Zealand | Australia | New Zealand | England |
| 2003 | Kingston, Jamaica | New Zealand | Australia | Jamaica |
| 2007 | Auckland, New Zealand | Australia | New Zealand | Jamaica |
| 2011 | Singapore | Australia | New Zealand | England |
| 2015 | Sydney, Australia | Australia | New Zealand | England |
| 2019 | Liverpool, England | New Zealand | Australia | England |
| 2023 | Cape Town, South Africa | Australia | England | Jamaica |
In 1979 the round-robin ended with three teams level, and the title was shared. In 1987 Australia and Trinidad and Tobago finished level behind New Zealand; results tables record this as a shared bronze, although some sources describe it as a shared second place.
Australia have won the most titles — 12, including the shared 1979 title — followed by New Zealand with five. Trinidad and Tobago's share of the 1979 title makes them the only other champions. England (silver in 1975 and 2023), South Africa (silver in 1995) and Jamaica (four bronze medals) are the other nations to have reached the podium. The 2023 edition in Cape Town was the first held in Africa.
What's changing after 2027
The 2027 Netball World Cup is due to be held in Sydney, and will be the last on the four-year cycle. In June 2025 World Netball announced that the tournament will become biennial, with the following edition in November 2029, and that a men's Netball World Cup will be added to the international calendar.
Where this page stops
This page is a durable reference to what the Netball World Cup is — its format, history and results — rather than a source for the current tournament's schedule, draw or live scores. For the latest dates, fixtures and results, check World Netball's official site.
Sources
All information on this page is given to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing (October 2026), after referring to the sources below — official sources wherever they exist, and the named secondary source where we couldn't find an official record.
- World Netball: Eastbourne 1963 — the first tournament.
- Netball South Africa: World Netball announces biennial Netball World Cup and inaugural men's NWC — the 2025 calendar change.
- World Netball: Netball World Cup results — every edition's medallists, checked October 2026.
Related reading
See history of the Netball World Cup for how the tournament was founded, Commonwealth Games netball for the sport's other major international tournament, and history of netball for how international competition developed alongside the sport as a whole.