Ladies and gentlemen, the Eurovision 2026 Season has officially kicked off today! Are you looking forward to the forthcoming 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna?
Austria will be welcoming the Eurovision bandwagon for the third time in the history of the competition when circa 40 delegations and artists, 1,000 plus journalists and thousands of Eurovision land in Vienna next May.
As of today, any song that is released from 1st September will be eligible to participate at Eurovision 2026. The Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna on 12, 14 and 16 May.
The first national selections are expected to kick off in December, whilst some countries will be revealing their ESC 2026 hopefuls in the coming months (in the scenario of an internal selection).
Numerous countries have already kicked off their preparations for their respective national selections:
- Spain- Benidorm Fest
- Sweden- Melodifestivalen
- Albania- Festivali i Kenges
- Latvia- Supernova
- Lithuania- EUROVIZIJA.LT
- Finland- UMK
- Norway- Melodi Grand Prix
- Denmark- Dansk Melodi Grand Prix
- Greece- Greek National Final
- Austria- Austrian National Final
- Luxembourg- Luxembourg Song Contest
- Malta- Malta Eurovision Song Contest
- Serbia- PZE
- Montenegro- Montesong
- Ukraine- Vidbir
- Switzerland- internal selection process
Many other countries are yet to officially confirm their participation at Eurovision 2026, announce the mechanism they’ll use to select their respective ESC entries and acts, publish the rules for their national selections.
You can check ESCToday’s following articles covering the confirmations, key milestones and timeline leading up to Eurovision 2026:
