One basic change in the women's qualification events system in comparison with the previous olympic cicle: the continental qualifier in Africa will be African Nations Cup (African Championships) instead of separate, special qualification event.
List of already qualified teams (1 out of 12):
JAPAN (qualified as: organiser)Road for remaining (11) teams to qualify:
>> 1 team: winner of the 2018 European Championships (scheduled for 29 November - 16 December 2018 in France)
>> 1 team: winner of the 2018 African Nations Cup (scheduled for 2 - 12 Dec 2018 in Brazzaville, Congo)
>> 1 team: winner of the 2019 Panamerican Games (preliminarily scheduled for 26 Jul – 11 Aug 2019 in Lima, Peru)
>> 1 team: winner of the 2019 Asian Olympic Qualification (preliminarily scheduled for 21 – 29 Sep 2019; host TBA)
>> 1 team: winner of the 2019 World Championships (scheduled for 30 Nov – 15 Dec 2019 in Kumamoto region, Japan)
>> 6 teams: top two teams from the three 2020 Olympic Qualification Tournaments (scheduled for 19 – 22 Mar 2020; hosts TBA by IHF - not depending on the results of 2019 WCh). 12 teams will compete in the Olympic Qualification Tournaments, with teams ranked 2nd-7th (6 in total) in their respective 2019 WCh participating. The remaining six teams will consist of the two from the best ranked continent at the respective 2019 WCh, two from the second-best continent and one each from the third and fourth best continent. If one or more teams who have placed between 2nd-7th at their respective 2019 WCh have already qualified for Tokyo 2020 at their continental qualification event, then the teams placed 8th onwards will be eligible to participation in the Olympic Qualification Tournaments.
In the qualification system, WCh takes priority over continental qualification events when allocating respective spots for the events. If the winners of the 2019 WCh, or Japan, were to win their respective continental qualification event, then the next highest-ranked team will take the qualification spot.
Non-qualified national teams with alive possibility to qualify for the 2020 Olympics:
● all European NTs which are qualified, or can qualify for the 2018 ECh
● all European NTs which will register for the European qualification for the 2019 WCh
● all African NTs which are qualified for the 2018 African Nations Cup, or can qualify there (there's the internal continental ranking which will matter, based on the results of some previous African handball events => African Handball Confederation will announce this ranking, and thus the event's full list of participants later in 2018)
● all Asian NTs which will register for the 2018/2019 Asian Championships (preliminarily scheduled for 8 -16 Dec 2018 in Japan)
● all Asian NTs which will register for the 2019 Asian Olympic qualification
● all Panamerican NTs which are qualified for the 2019 Panamerican Games, or can qualify there via remaining qualification events, i.e.: 2018 Central American & Caribbean Games (scheduled for 20 – 25 July 2018 in Baranquilla, Colombia) and 2019 Panamerican second chance tournament (preliminary scheduled for the first halfyear of 2019; host TBA)
● all Panamerican NTs which are qualified for the 2019 Panamerican Championships (preliminarily scheduled for spring months of 2019; host TBA), or can qualify there = will register for the regional qualification events, i.e.: 2018 Central American Championships (preliminary scheduled for the end of the 2018; host TBA), 2019 North American & Caribbean Championships (preliminary scheduled for the first halfyear of 2019; host TBA) and 2019 South American Championships (may not be necessarily held; if yes, it should be scheduled for the first halfyear of 2019)
List of national teams which already failed to qualify for the 2020 Olympics:
none
FRANCE (winner of the 
RUSSIA (runner-up of the 
BRAZIL (winner of the 2019 Panamerican Games)
ARGENTINA (runner-up of the 2019 Panamerican Games)
