The 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification, CONCACAF zone ran from March 1996 to November 1997 in order to determine the three

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

representatives at the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...

. For an overview of the qualification rounds, see

1998 FIFA World Cup qualification The 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification competition was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA FIFA#Structure, confederations. Each confederation — the Asian Football Confederation, AFC (Asia), Confederation of African Football, CAF (Afr ...

. A total of 30 CONCACAF teams entered the competition. Mexico, the USA, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Canada, the six highest-ranked teams according to

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

, received byes and advanced to the third round directly. The remaining 24 teams were divided into two zones, based on geographical locations.

Format

*Caribbean Zone: The 20 teams played in three rounds of knockout matches on a home-and-away basis to determine four winners advancing to the third round.

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

and

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

withdrew before playing one game. 18 countries stay in the race. *Central American Zone: The four teams were paired up to play knockout matches on a home-and-away basis. The winners would advance to the third round. In the third round, the 12 teams were divided into three groups of four teams each. They played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners and runners-up would advance to the final round. In the final round, the six teams played against each other on a home-and-away basis. The top three teams would qualify.

Preliminary round

;Group A Dominican Republic won 6–3 on aggregate and advanced to the first round. ---- ;Group B Grenada won 8–1 on aggregate and advanced to the first round. ---- ;Group C The

withdrew, so

Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Kitts and Nevis, officially the Federation of Saint Christopher (St Kitts) and Nevis, is an island country consisting of the two islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, both located in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands chain of the Less ...

advanced to the first round automatically. ---- ;Group D Dominica won 6–4 on aggregate and advanced to the first round.

First round

;Group 1 Dominican Republic won 2–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 2 Haiti won 7–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 3 Cuba won 6–0 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 4 Saint Kitts and Nevis won 6–1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 5 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines won 9-1 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 6 Barbados won 2–0 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 7 Jamaica won 2–0 on aggregate and advanced to the second round. ---- ;Group 8

withdrew, so

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

advanced to the second round automatically.

Second round

, - !colspan=6, Caribbean Zone , - !colspan=6, Central American Zone

Caribbean Zone

;Group A Cuba won 7–2 on aggregate and advanced to the third round. ---- ;Group B Trinidad and Tobago won 12–1 on aggregate and advanced to the third round. ---- ;Group C Jamaica won 3–0 on aggregate and advanced to the third round. ---- ;Group D 2–2 on aggregate. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines won on the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

and advanced to the third round.

Central American Zone

;Group E Guatemala won 3–1 on aggregate and advanced to the third round. ---- ;Group F Panama won 6-2 on aggregate and advanced to the third round.

Third round

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Fourth round

Qualified teams

The following three teams from CONCACAF qualified for the final tournament. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.