YLE revealed the date of the Finnish national selection for the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest. The rules of the national selection have been published as well.

Semifinals: 4×6 songs
Four semifinals will take place on 13th, 20th, 27th January and 3rd February. Three participants per semifinal will sing two songs each, the best song of each participant will proceed to the final, to be held on 11th March (TV2). This means every artis participating in the semifinals can count on a place in the final. During the final, twelve songs will be brought back to six songs. The winner will be chosen from these six songs in a second voting window and will represent Finland at the 51st Eurovision Song Contest.

Rules revealed as well
Songs are not allowed to be made public before 9th January and the deadline for the submission of songs has been set as 1st December. The performers, selected by YLE and the involved record companies, have to be Finnish or have to live in Finland for a longer period of time. At least one of the song writers and/or composers of each act has to be Finnish as well. The selected artists will be announced on 28th November.

The selection committee (YLE and record company representatives) prefers songs in the Finnish and Swedish, both official languages of Finland. YLE allowes the winner to change the language of the song for performance at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Last year, Geir Rönning represented Finland in Kyiv at the 50th Eurovision Song Contest but failed to qualify for the final with his song Why?. Finland will therefore participate in the semifinal of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, to be held on the 18th May in Athens.