The 2025 edition of the EHF European Wheelchair Handball Championship throws-off on Wednesday (26 November) at the NBA Basketball School in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Nine national teams will play in four matchdays across five days before the championship concludes with the final on Sunday (30 November).

Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, France and Spain will all do battle for the right to be called continental champions as well as sealing qualification through to the 2026 IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship, along with the silver medalists.

2025 marks the first time that the European Handball Federation event will be played in the four-a-side format, the same which is used in the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship, an event in which Egypt are the current title-holders, after taking gold last year at home. All previous editions of the European event were played in the six-a-side format.

The nine teams in Lithuania are split into two initial, preliminary groups with the top two in each moving through to the semi-finals and medal matches, and others playing in various placement matches.

Debutant and hosts Lithuania are in group A, joined by double (2015, 2016) European Nations’ Tournament winners Netherlands and Croatia, who won the same event in 2019. Norway and Hungary make up the bumper group of five.

Group B features the remaining four teams with the Egypt 2025 world championship pair of Portugal – who finished in seventh place – and France (fourth) joined by Spain and Romania. Portugal won the six-a-side combined world and European championship back in 2022. 

“We organise many different international handball events, but the wheelchair handball championship will be the first international event of this sport in Lithuania,” said Lithuanian Handball Federation (LRF) Secretary General Žilvinas Galimovas to eurohandball.com ahead of the event.

“We are really excited and are working hard to make sure everything goes smoothly. I hope that this championship will become a motivation to continue working and expand wheelchair handball throughout Lithuania.”

For fans unfamiliar with the format of the sport, men and women play in mixed teams of four players, with at least one female player on court at all times. Any player present on the court may act as a goalkeeper at any time, but only one player may enter and remain in their own goalkeeper area at the same time.

Similar to beach handball, two sets of 10 minutes each are played. If a team wins both sets, they are the winners, but it a team wins one each, a third set (tiebreaker) of five minutes is played and if the score is still tied, a shoot-out is used to determine the winning side.

If a set is equal at the end of the allocated 10 minutes, then a golden goal is used to determine the winner of that set and if after five minutes neither team has scored, the golden goal is considered completed and the winner of the set is determined through a series of five shoot-out shots.

The game also features the potential of two point shots. These can be scored through ‘spectacular’ or ‘creative’ goals such as goalkeepers shooting from inside their own area or players on court completing 360-degree spin shots.

For the complete Rules of the Game, visit HERE.

All matches from Vilnius will be streamed live on EHFTV (free, but sign-up required) with some geo-restrictions. For more information and how to follow and interact with the championship, visit HERE.