The UCI has published the first list of professional road teams seeking registration for 2027, with both GreenEDGE’s Australian squads and Picnic PostNL’s men’s and women’s teams absent from the named WorldTour applicants. The omissions are conspicuous, but they do not amount to confirmation that any of the four teams will lose their top-division status next season.
There is also an important distinction between the headline figure and the registration totals. The UCI’s statement of 19 October names 48 teams that supplied the essential documents by the 15 October deadline. However, its category-by-category figures total 54 applications. The six-team difference is explained by applicants that are counted but not named because their essential documentation was incomplete.
For the time being, it is a paperwork and licensing story rather than a list of confirmed relegations. The UCI and external auditors PwC are examining the financial, administrative and ethical requirements, with additional organisational checks for both WorldTour categories and the women’s ProTeams. Those with outstanding documents can still remedy their position before the final list is published on 8 December.
What the UCI’s 48-team list actually shows
| 2027 registration category | Applications counted | Teams named | Not named |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women’s WorldTeams | 14 | 12 | 2 |
| Men’s WorldTeams | 18 | 16 | 2 |
| Women’s ProTeams | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Men’s ProTeams | 14 | 12 | 2 |
| Total | 54 | 48 | 6 |
The women’s WorldTour and men’s WorldTour each have two unnamed candidates. Comparing the UCI’s list with the teams holding WorldTour places in 2026 points to Liv AlUla Jayco and Picnic PostNL among the women, and Team Jayco AlUla and Picnic PostNL among the men. All four appear to be missing from the public section rather than from the overall application totals.
The UCI does not identify the six incomplete applicants individually, so that match remains an inference from the existing WorldTour line-ups and the numbers, not a confirmation from the governing body of precisely which team missed which document. Another apparent omission is not an omission at all: Yellow B. Cycling is the registered company behind Visma | Lease a Bike, which therefore appears in both WorldTour lists under its operating-company name.
GreenEDGE absent again, but last year’s application was also delayed
The absence of Team Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco will be familiar to anyone who followed the licensing process a year ago. Both GreenEDGE teams were missing from the first list published in October 2025, before submitting the outstanding material later that month and securing their 2026 WorldTour registrations.
That earlier delay was not simply evidence of an imminent shutdown. Reporting at the time linked the outstanding application to a bank guarantee and the wider financial documentation required for registration. Both teams continued racing in 2026, and GreenEDGE have since announced rider plans for 2027, including arrivals and contract extensions.
The precedent makes another administrative delay plausible, though it cannot establish that the cause is identical this time. The UCI’s latest announcement does not explain why individual files are missing, nor whether the documents outstanding concern financial guarantees, administration or another criterion.
GreenEDGE has a long-established joint structure spanning the men’s and women’s WorldTour. A simultaneous absence is therefore worth noting, but it is not evidence on its own that both squads are closing, dropping a division or abandoning their applications. Confirmation will have to come from a revised filing or the final UCI registration decision.
Picnic PostNL and the unresolved question of its WorldTour licences
Picnic PostNL’s position is more complicated. When the UCI awarded the 2026–2028 WorldTour licences in December 2025, it limited both the men’s and women’s squads to a single season, setting financial conditions that would need to be satisfied before their licences could be extended into 2027 and 2028. ProCyclingUK reported those exceptional one-year licences at the time.
Reports earlier this month suggested the Dutch organisation might consider moving its men’s team voluntarily to ProTeam level. The team rejected that account. In comments reported on 9 October, a spokesperson said preparations were continuing for both the men’s and women’s teams to race at WorldTour level in 2027, with the development squads remaining Continental.
The absence from this week’s published registration list does not settle that argument. Crucially, Picnic PostNL does not appear among the named men’s ProTeam applicants either, so the document provides no confirmation of an application for a second-division place. The public information still points to an organisation seeking to retain its existing structure, with its financial requirements awaiting assessment.
The questions are nevertheless substantial. Picnic PostNL’s one-year licences had already made the 2027 position conditional, while recent reporting in the Netherlands has highlighted sponsor uncertainty and an ongoing independent investigation into allegations about the team’s working culture. Those matters are relevant context, but there is no basis in the UCI release to say they caused the registration omission.
On the road, the men have struggled for results in 2026, although Frits Biesterbos delivered a late-season WorldTour victory at the Tour of Guangxi. That result does not remove the financial licensing conditions. Nor does the team’s WorldTour status disappear simply because its name is absent from this preliminary list.
Which men’s ProTeams are missing?
The men’s second division has its own gap. The UCI counts 14 prospective ProTeam applicants but names only 12, leaving two files not published. Compared with the 16 registered men’s ProTeams from 2026, four familiar names do not appear: Equipo Kern Pharma, Euskaltel–Euskadi, Team Flanders–Baloise and TotalEnergies.
Those four cases are not interchangeable. Flanders–Baloise has been preparing to end operations, while TotalEnergies has been searching for a sponsor to secure its future. Kern Pharma has also faced questions over replacement backing. Euskaltel–Euskadi’s absence requires separate clarification. The UCI’s totals are insufficient to establish which two of these four, if any, are the unnamed incomplete applicants or which may no longer be seeking ProTeam registration.
There are also sponsor and naming changes within the teams that are listed. A straight name-for-name comparison without accounting for those changes risks overstating the number of organisations disappearing. What is clear is that the 2027 men’s ProTeam field remains unsettled, with the position of several existing squads still to be resolved.
Women’s ProTeams offer a more settled picture
By contrast, all eight women’s ProTeam candidates appear in the public list: Cofidis, Decathlon CMA CGM, Laboral Kutxa–Fundación Euskadi, Lotto–Intermarché Ladies, Ma Petite Entreprise, Mayenne Monbana My Pie, St Michel–Préférence Home–Auber93 and VolkerWessels Cycling Team. That is not final approval, but it means this division has no unnamed applicants in the UCI’s preliminary totals.
Among the eight is the new Decathlon CMA CGM women’s ProTeam, an additional structure entering professional women’s racing rather than a team missing from the WorldTour list. It is a useful reminder that the Women’s ProTeam category is developing differently from the more financially pressured men’s second division.
What happens between now and the final 2027 list?
The applicants whose essential paperwork was incomplete at the 15 October deadline can still rectify their files before the end of the registration process. The UCI has also stated that, under the relevant regulations and subject to applicable conditions, riders of those teams may have the right to end their contracts early. That right lapses if their team subsequently obtains registration.
The final published list is due on 8 December 2026. Until then, the most accurate reading of today’s release is not that four WorldTour teams have been relegated. It is that 48 candidates are publicly named, another six are included in the totals without being identified, and the futures of GreenEDGE, Picnic PostNL and several second-division men’s teams remain subject to the registration process.
