The Semi-Final Allocation Draw for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest took place in Basel, Switzerland, today. The ceremony for the draw and the passing of the Host City insignia pass from previous hosts Malmö to Basel was streamed live on the Eurovision YouTube channel.
The semi-final draw
The Semi-Final Draw places the all Eurovision-participating countries in their semi-finals. It was hosted by Jennifer Bosshard and Jan van Ditzhuijzen. The countries have been divided into five pots based on their previous voting patterns, in order to avoid predictable results.
The automatic qualifiers, which are the ‘The Big Five’ countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) and the host Switzerland do not compete in the semi-finals. However, they have always been allocated to a semi-final, in which they vote and, since last year, perform with the other entries.
NOTE: The exact running order will be decided by producers at a later date.
Semi-final 1 (May 13)
First half
- 🇪🇪 Estonia
- 🇮🇸 Iceland
- 🇵🇱 Poland
- 🇵🇹 Portugal
- 🇸🇮 Slovenia
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇺🇦 Ukraine
Second half
- 🇦🇱 Albania
- 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan
- 🇧🇪 Belgium
- 🇨🇾 Cyprus
- 🇭🇷 Croatia
- 🇳🇱 The Netherlands
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇸🇲 San Marino
Automatic qualifiers
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇪🇦 Spain
- 🇨🇭Switzerland
Semi-final 2 (May 15)
First half
- 🇦🇲 Armenia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇱🇻 Latvia
- 🇱🇹 Lithuania
- 🇲🇪 Montenegro
Second half
- 🇨🇿 Czechia
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇬🇪 Georgia
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇹 Malta
- 🇸🇰 Serbia
Automatic qualifiers
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Is anyone advantaged by this draw? Disadvantaged? Has anyone’s chances changed drastically after the draw? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!