Scottish Football Ups & Downs 2025-26: Promotions, Relegations & European Places

Here are the Scottish Football Promotions, Relegations & European Places for the 2025-26 season.

Updated May 27, 2026. You can skip ahead to this season’s results here.

After every season, as it is all over Europe, Scottish football clubs go up, go down, and get into Europe. Here’s an explainer of how that works and what happened after the 2025-26 season.

Meanwhile, here is a post all about promotion and relegation in the top European football leagues.

League Structure in Scottish Football

As in all countries, Scotland has tiers of leagues in its football structure. At the top is the Premiership, including all the famous clubs like Celtic, Rangers, and Hearts. Just below that is the Championship, and below that is League One, and so on.

Connecting all of this is a system of promotion and relegation.

Scottish Football Clubs Qualifying For Europe

After the Scottish season split occurs and the season finishes, these teams go to Europe.

At the top of the Premiership the top two clubs qualify for the next season’s Champions League — although depending on the league’s UEFA coefficient (ranking vs other leagues), no. 2 in Scotland might to go the Europa League. No. 3 goes to the Europa League qualifiers, as does the winner of the Scottish Cup. No. 4 goes to the Europa Conference League.

How Does Promotion and Relegation Work in Scottish Football?

Promotion and relegation in Scottish football is generally similar to other leagues, but there are some differences. Here we will break it all down for you.

• The club that finishes 12th (last) in the Premiership is relegated to the Championship.
• The winners of the second-tier Championship is promoted automatically.
• 11th in the Premiership goes into a playoff
• Also in that playoff is the winner of a 2-through-4 playoff in the Championship.

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2025-26 Promotions, Relegations and European Places in Scotland

Here is the top of the final 2025-26 Scottish Premiership table. Links are to our profiles of each club. Note that Scottish teams don’t go straight into UEFA League Stages; they have to go through earlier qualifying rounds.

1. Celtic: Champions League qualifying rounds (Buy Celtic Tickets)
2. Heart of Midlothian: Champions League qualifying rounds (Buy Hearts Tickets)
3. Rangers: Europa League qualifying rounds because Celtic won the Scottish Cup (Buy Rangers Tickets)
4. Motherwell: Conference League qualifying rounds

Relegated from Scottish Premiership to Championship:

• Livingston

Promoted from Scottish Championship to Premiership:

• St. Johnstone as champions — that’s them in the photo at the top of this post.

Scottish Football Promotion Playoffs

• Quarterfinals: Dunfermline Athletic eliminated Arbroath, 1-0, on aggregate.
• Semifinals: Partick Thistle eliminated Dunfermline Athletic, 3-2, on aggregate.
• Final: St. Mirren defeated Partick, 2-1, on aggregate to remain in the Premiership.

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