Today (12th January 2026), the Semi-Final Allocation Draw for the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Austran capital and host city Vienna. The ceremony for the draw and the passing of the Host City insignia passed from previous hosts Basel to Vienna 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 Eurovision 2018 third-place for Austria – Cesar Sampson and Alexandra Maritza Wachter, a news host for Zeit im Bild, the main news broadcast of host broadcaster ORF. 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 Four’ countries (France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and the host Austria do not compete in the semi-finals. However, they have always been allocated to a semi-final, in which they vote and, since last 2024, perform with the other entries.
NOTE: The exact running order will be decided by producers at a later date.
Semi Final 1 (12th May 2026)
First Half
- 🇬🇪Georgia
- 🇵🇹Portugal
- 🇭🇷Croatia
- 🇸🇪Sweden
- 🇫🇮Finland
- 🇲🇩Moldova
- 🇬🇷Greece
Second Half
- 🇲🇪Montenegro
- 🇪🇪Estonia
- 🇸🇲San Marino
- 🇵🇱Poland
- 🇧🇪Belgium
- 🇱🇹Lithuania
- 🇷🇸Serbia
- 🇮🇱Israel
Automatic Qualifiers
- 🇩🇪Germany
- 🇮🇹Italy
Semi Final 2 (14th May 2026)
First Half
- 🇦🇲Armenia
- 🇷🇴Romania
- 🇨🇭Switzerland
- 🇦🇿Azerbaijan
- 🇱🇺Luxembourg
- 🇧🇬Bulgaria
- 🇨🇿Czechia
Second Half
- 🇦🇱Albania
- 🇩🇰Denmark
- 🇨🇾Cyprus
- 🇳🇴Norway
- 🇲🇹Malta
- 🇦🇺Australia
- 🇺🇦Ukraine
- 🇱🇻Latvia
Automatic Qualifiers
- 🇦🇹Austria
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇬🇧United Kingdom
How do you feel about the semi final allocation draw?
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