The competition is a knockout tournament with pairings for each round drawn at random – there are no seeds, and the draw for each round is not made until after the scheduled dates for the previous round. The draw also determines which teams will play at home.
There are a total of 5 rounds in the competition — six qualifying rounds, followed by two group stages, semi-finals, and the final. The competition begins in January with the extra preliminary round, followed by the preliminary round and first qualifying round, which are contested by the lowest-ranked clubs. Finally, teams from the Liga de Fútbol Profesional Boliviano enter at the third round, at which point there are 64 teams remaining in the competition. From 1976 to 1996, the final was played in the Estadio Hernando Siles.
