<section begin=Draw /> The draw for the qualifying round was held on 17 June 2016, 11:00 MYT (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [REF].
For the draw, the pre-selected hosts were placed in their own pot, while the remaining teams were seeded according to the performance of their association in the 2016 AFC Cup qualifying round, with associations participating ranked and associations not participating unranked [REF].