A draft was held at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium on 23 October 2018. As in previous drafts, players nominated a single state's draft pool, and players are eligible to be drafted only by clubs operating in their nominated state. In addition, Victorian players could nominate for one of three Victorian zones: Geelong, Melbourne metro, or the entire state. An order for the draft was announced on 22 May that allocated Geelong and North Melbourne picks at the end of each of each round, and a number of compensation picks to Geelong and clubs that lost players to reflect the relative weakness of their recruiting period and their loss of talent respectively.
