Dates for the first two qualifying rounds, and any preliminaries required, were set by the individual Regional leagues. From round three, the FFF defined the calendar, with rounds up to and including the round of 32 being scheduled for weekends and later rounds up to, but not including, the final, taking place on midweek evenings.[2]
The first six rounds, and any preliminaries required, were organised by the Regional Leagues and the Overseas Departments/Territories, who allowed teams from within their league structure to enter at any point up to the third round. Teams from Championnat National 3 entered at the third round, those from Championnat National 2 entered at the fourth round and those from Championnat National entered at the fifth round.
^17 clubs compete in the National but LB Châteauroux is banned from participating.[4]
^The first two regional rounds for Paris-Île-de-France took place at the end of May/beginning of June, the club promoted to N3 would have been playing in R1 at the time.
^Régional 4 only exists in Corsica as the last level: there is no departmental championship
The 155 qualified clubs from the 6th round are joined by the 18 Ligue 2 clubs as well as the overseas representatives of Mayotte and Tahiti. Due to the riots and its consequences, no club from New Caledonia participated in this edition.
Of the two overseas clubs entering the 7th round, only the club representing Tahiti, AS Dragon, plays at home against a mainland club according to the rule of biannual alternation (Métropole/Outre-Mer), the Mayotte representative, Diables Noirs, must travel to mainland France, Mayotte not having an approved stadium to host this type of meeting.
A draw to determine the club which travels to Tahiti in Round 7, and then French Guiana, and Réunion in Round 8 takes place from a list of candidate clubs from mainland France, having expressed the wish to travel overseas while the Mayotte club is included in the main draw. Should an allocated team be knocked out in Round 7, the draw will move down the list to the next team, and this team will travel overseas. Overseas teams can only play one match at home against a mainland team, should they advance from Round 8 they will have to travel to France for the later rounds. The draw took place on October 29 2024.
The 173 teams are divided into nine distinct groups of equal level and geography to avoid long travel.
Due to the withdrawal of the New Caledonia representative, a drawn club received a bye from this round and directly qualified for the 8th round. This team was FC Rouen 1899.
