The first youth team event were the Student Olympiads that took off in 1954. The event was open for students under 27 years of age. In late 1970s many countries lost interest in then Student Olympiads and rising financial constraints forced FIDE to alter the cycle from annual to biennial in 1976. The 1977 Olympiad happened to be the last from the series though. A brand new event was created to replace them. There were eleven editions of Youth U26 World Team Championship all in all from 1978 to 1997. As the event began to deteriorate rapidly in 1990s is was finally ceased and replaced with Junior U20 World Team Championship. The experiment failed and only four editions took part. There is no world team championship for junior since 2001. Only annual Children's Olympiads (U16) take place.

As far as regional events are concerned, there is European U18 Team Championship held separately for boys and girls starting from 2000. Another youth tournament with a long tradition is the Glorney/Faber Cup dating back to 1948. Eight European teams take part in this annual event including those from the British Isles.

- Student Olympiads (1954-1977)
- Youth U26 World Team Championship (1978-1997)
- Junior U20 World Team Championship (1998-2001)