Participating Teams for the third Rugby World Cup in 1995 were the top sixteen rugby-playing nations of the world fighting for the world's most coveted rugby crown.
The tournament in South Africa, the first Rugby World Cup to be held in a single country, saw the top sixteen rugby playing nations travel to the host nation to compete in the tournament.
The participating teams in the 1995 Rugby World Cup gained their admission in the tournament in two different ways. The selections were based either on the teams' performance in the last World Cup played in 1991 or their performance in the Rugby World Cup qualifiers . The qualifiers were played among teams of the same regions and the regions were divided as Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania. Seven teams emerged through these qualifiers as the participants in the World Cup to fill up the blank places after the entry of South Africa as the host and eight other countries as the automatic qualifiers for being the quarter finalists of the 1991 World Cup.
The 1995 Rugby World Cup had sixteen positions for the participating teams to be filled in. South Africa participated as the host and sealed one of the positions. The quarter finalists of the 1991 Rugby World Cup had the privilege of qualifying automatically and the rest of the places were occupied by the teams through the regional qualifiers. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Samoa, England, France, Ireland and Scotland were eligible to play in the Cup for reaching the last eight stages in the last World Cup. The In the qualifiers, Cote d'Ivoire emerged champions in the African Region while Japan won the right to appear from the Asian Region . Argentina qualified from the Americas , Tonga from Oceania and European Region had three qualified teams-Italy Romania and Wales.
