The 24 teams were divided into six groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two teams of each group qualified for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, where they were joined by the 12 teams which qualified directly from the second round.
Due to the withdrawal of Guam and the suspension of Kuwait, the AFC invited both Nepal and Macau, the top two teams of the 2016 AFC Solidarity Cup, to re-enter 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification as replacements in order to maintain 24 teams in the third round of the competition.
Draw
The draw for the third round was held on 23 January 2017, 16:00 GST (UTC+4), in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It was initially scheduled for 18 January 2017, but was delayed.
The 24 teams were drawn into six groups of four. They were seeded using the January 2017 FIFA World Rankings (indicated in parentheses below).
The national teams which eventually qualified are presented in bold.
Schedule
The schedule of each matchday was as follows.
Groups
The top two teams of each group qualified for the final tournament.
Tiebreakers
The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers were applied in the following order (Regulations Article 9.3):
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying criteria 1 to 4, a subset of teams were still tied, criteria 1 to 4 were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Macau
Myanmar
North Korea
Lebanon
Vietnam
Cambodia
Bhutan
Palestine
Turkmenistan
Bahrain
Singapore
Nepal
Tajikistan
Chen Chao-an