World Rugby will remove the home weighting component from its rankings calculation system with effect from July 1, a change driven by the increasingly decentralised nature of international rugby's competition calendar.
The home weighting, in place since the men's rankings launched in October 2003, gave the home team an additional three rating points for calculation purposes — a mechanism designed to neutralise home advantage under the traditional home-and-away hosting model. The same principle applied to host unions at Rugby World Cups, the Pacific Nations Cup, WXV and regional competitions.
World Rugby's rationale for the removal centres on the volume of matches now played at neutral or out-of-country venues for commercial and strategic reasons. Fiji, for instance, will host three Nations Championship matches in the UK, Japan will face Ireland in Australia, and Nations Cup teams will compete at cluster locations. The WXV Global Series Challenger is centralised in Hong Kong. In total, more than 20 matches across international competitions are scheduled at neutral venues before the end of 2026 — including the final South Africa v New Zealand fixture in their Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series in Baltimore in September.
Under the old system, a team designated as the nominal host but playing at a neutral venue effectively incurred a rankings penalty for winning, since the home weighting boosted their opponent's calculation without any corresponding actual home advantage existing.
South Africa sit atop the men's rankings at 93.94 points, with New Zealand second on 90.33 and Ireland third on 89.07. France (87.46), Argentina (84.97) and England (83.91) round out the top six.