There were 128 qualifying places available for archery at the 2016 Summer Olympics: 64 for men and 64 for women.
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Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) is permitted to enter a maximum of six competitors, three per gender. NOCs that qualify teams for a particular gender were able to send a three-member team to the team event and also have each member compete in the individual event. There were 12 team spots for each gender, thus qualifying 36 individuals through team qualification. All other NOCs may earn a maximum of one quota place per gender for the individual events.
Six places are reserved for Brazil as the host nation, and a further six will be decided by the Tripartite Commission. The remaining 116 places are then allocated through a qualification process, in which archers earned quota places for their respective NOCs, though not necessarily for themselves.
To be eligible to participate in the Olympic Games after the NOC has obtained a quota place, all archers must have achieved the following minimum qualification score (MQS):
The MQS must have been achieved between 26 July 2015 (starting at the 2015 World Archery Championships) and 11 July 2016 at a registered World Archery event.
Men's events
* Eight individual spots were initially available at the World Championships and three more at the Asian Championships. Those spots taken by Indonesia and Malaysia later won team places in the team recurve at the Antalya leg of the Archery World Cup, releasing two further individual quota places to be awarded in the same meet.
Women's events
* Eight individual spots were initially available at the World Championships. Three of those spots were taken by Ukraine, Italy, and Chinese Taipei. Those NOCs later won team places in the team recurve at the Antalya leg of the Archery World Cup, releasing three further individual quota places to be awarded in the same meet.