The 2010 AFC Challenge Cup qualification phase saw five teams advance to the finals to join three automatic qualifiers in the final tournament in Sri Lanka. Qualification consisted of two sections.

Seeding

Seeding was based partially on the FIFA World Ranks as at January 2009 (ranking shown in brackets). , and 🇬🇺 guam chose not to compete. Afghanistan withdrew prior to their first match.

Qualifying preliminary round

Moved from originally scheduled dates of 7 March and 14 March due to conflict with the qualification for the 2010 East Asian Football Championship. ''3–3 on aggregate. Macau advanced to the group phase on the away goals rule.''

Qualifying group stage

Qualification was officially scheduled to take place from 2–13 April 2009, although the actual dates began before and extended beyond that. Each qualification group was held in a single location - Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka hosting their respective groups. The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss) and tie breakers were in following order:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Tie-breaking situation:

Group D

Ranking of second placed teams

The best-ranked second placed team also qualified for the finals tournament. Due to Afghanistan's withdrawal from Group C, matches against fourth-placed sides in the other groups were excluded from the following comparison. Notes on the tie-breaking situation:

Final tournament

The final tournament, consisting of 8 teams, was eventually held from 16–27 February in Sri Lanka.

Qualifiers

The eight teams that qualified for the final tournament are: The draw for the final tournament was done on 30 November 2009 at the Galadri Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Goalscorers