Unipublic, organizer of the Vuelta a España, has given wildcard invitations to the Burgos-BH team and the Caja Rural-Segros RGA team, but Nairo Quintana's Alcare Sumsic, Mathieu van der Pol's Alpecin Phoenix, and the Basque Country-based Fundacion Orbea team are not eligible.

The 19 WorldTour teams are automatically invited to the Spanish Grand Tour, with Total Direct Energie topping the 2019 ProTeam classification and securing their spot.

The UCI did not allow the team size to be reduced from eight to seven for the extra teams, so the Vuelta peloton will have 176 riders from 22 teams.

Caja Rural is a mainstay of the Vuelta, and Burgos-BH was won by Angel Madraso last year as a stage winner.

There is no room for 2016 Vuelta champion Nairo Quintana. He is now with the pro team Arkea Samsic and may have hoped to compete in the Vuelta after the Tour de France. There is also no Grand Tour debut for van der Pol, who was rejected after his attempt to compete in the Tour de France, but the Dutchman will likely target the cobbled classics as the Vuelta unfolds.

Also, the Fundación-Orbea team (Fundación Euskadi), run by Bahrain McLaren's Mikel Landa, will compete, despite becoming a professional team this year and reviving the orange jersey of the Euskaltel-Euskadi era There was no room for them.

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the Vuelta a España was postponed from mid-August to October 20-November 8 for the Tour de France. Unipublic accepted to reduce the race to 18 stages, overlapping six stages with the Giro d'Italia and the subsequent stages with Paris-Roubaix and Il Lombardia.

Despite thousands of COVID-19 cases in Spain, the country has recently begun to break free from the strict blockade, with professional athletes being allowed to train outdoors.

The Vuelta a España was scheduled to start with three stages in the Netherlands, but the pandemic made this impossible. The shortened race will instead start in Irun, Basque Country, and finish on a hilly course to the first stage, Alto de Arate. The race will then enter France and the Pyrenees Mountains, finishing at the Col du Tourmalet, before traversing northern Spain and entering Portugal.