35 countries will compete at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, the lowest number we have had since the Semi Finals began. In losing five countries and gaining three more, we have changed a total of eight different participants this year.
It is normal for some countries to return and others to withdraw each year, and the Eurovision Song Contest has not had the same participation list from one edition to the next at any point in the last twenty years. On average though, participation changes are much less than this year, averaging 3.85 changes per Eurovision edition.
The total change in the participation of eight countries is more than at any time since the Eurovision Song Contest began Semi Finals in 2004.
This change will impact voting results at the Song Contest. It is well known that due to various factors like diaspora groups, musical styles, the popularity of certain musical artists outside their own group and other similar factors, certain countries are more likely to vote for some countries more than others.
Since 2014, the EBU has released data on each country’s televote ranking in the Grand Final. We have been able to use that data to show how the likely rankings of televotes, as well as the expected points (xP) per country, will change with the new constellation of participating countries.
In our study, we find:
- The country of Poland is the big loser in this participation list, losing nations like Ireland and Iceland that often supported the nation well in televoting. Lithuania also falls back after losing key supporting nations in the West.
- Generally, it is countries in the west of Europe, nations like Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom that fall back and perform worse on average in this new Song Contest environment.
- The countries with a net gain in support tend to be from the eastern edge of the continent, including 2026 participants such as Greece, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Armenia.
- Israel and Ukraine, nations that have had headline-worthy success for their televote scores in recent years, tend to do better with televoting in the next constellation of nations, although there is nuance here to explain in this statistic
- Excluding non-competing nations, Russia and Hungary, our calculations for xP suggest that, at the most extreme example, there is an expected 29-point swing compared to last year’s participating countries in televote score for Poland compared to Azerbaijan. Comfortably enough, if the battle for victory and or qualification was tight between these two nations, that Eurovision history could be changed.
The Methodology
The Eurovision Song Contest has, since 2014, released full data on the rankings of each country’s televote, from first to last place.
What we are looking to do is compare the televote rankings over time for three groups: the five withdrawing nations, the three returning nations, and the nations unaffected.
What we have been able to do is calculate an average ranking for each nation in each Eurovision Grand Final since 2014 for each of these three groups. We then compare the average rankings of these nations each year with those of the other groups.
For example, if I take the 2021 televote winner ‘Zitti E Buoni’ from Italy. I can see that the five withdrawing countries rewarded it less than the rest of the continent, with Italy scoring two 2nd places, a 5th, a 6th and a 9th place from those five countries. That gives an average ranking of 4.8, which is less than the 3.0 that the combination of other countries ranked Italy as that year. Therefore, it would have been a net gain for Måneskin in 2021 to lose these five countries from the televoting, given their relative lack of support.
In our methodology, we can then compare each Italian entry in the Grand Final from 2014 to the present day to evaluate the trend of these five countries relative to others in Italy at the Song Contest. Overall, we observe that, across these five countries, Italy ranked 0.3 places lower than the observed average of the other nations in Italy’s eleven Grand Final appearances. This is a very small difference, which is not surprising, as Italy, as a nation, has a history of scoring equally well against almost all competing nations in the Eurovision Song Contest.
If we do the same investigation for the three returning countries, they were among the biggest supporters of Måneskin in 2021, with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place rankings in their voting, giving an average ranking of 2.0, better than the overall average. Overall, across Italy’s 11 participations, these nations rank Italy ever so slightly better than average, 0.2 places higher than other nations.
We can compare these two rankings (weighted by the number of countries and participation) to determine the overall change in ranking position for each nation qualifying for the Grand Final.
We have applied this methodology to two distinct data sets. One is the full ranking, as provided by the EBU, showing each nation’s televote from first to last place. The other set of data is the actual difference in expected televote points, based only on the top ten in each country’s ranking. While this dataset has much less data than the EBU provides, ultimately, it is good to reflect also on this because rankings from 11th to 26th place in the Eurovision Song Contest do not make any impact on the scoreboard.
The Biggest Losers
The main headline here is that one country stands out as suffering greatly on the scoreboard because of this new constellation of competing nations. Poland. Poland suffers by an average of 4.48 places per country with 2026’s 35 participants compared to last year’s group of nations. This huge swing is mainly due to the excellent support that Poland received from those withdrawing countries. For example, in last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, both Ireland and Iceland gave Polish act ‘Gaja’ douze points, with The Netherlands ranking Poland 2nd and Spain ranking Poland 3rd. In total, though, only eight nations had Poland in the podium positions, and 15 ranked the Polish act outside the top ten. Poland is a clear example of where their televote support is concentrated in certain areas rather than spread evenly across Europe.
In Iceland, Poles make up 5% of the Icelandic population today, and the 122,000 Poles living in Ireland make them the largest ethnic minority in this country as well. Poland is a nation with a large international diaspora, with around 20 million Poles living abroad. It is hypothesised that the existence of a large Polish diaspora helps Poland achieve high televote scores from its population.
The countries of Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania, in contrast to the withdrawing nations, have low percentages of Polish diaspora. Not only has Poland lost some of its most loyal televoting countries, but the Eurovision Song Contest has gained nations that ranked Poland significantly lower than the others. For example, Poland’s 2016 entry ‘Color of my Life’, scored 222 televotes on the night with an average ranking position of 6.3, but the nations of Moldova and Bulgaria, which voted that year together, ranked Poland with an average of 9.5.
It is the double whammy of losing loyal diaspora nations and Eurovision gaining nations that don’t vote towards Poland’s direction, which makes them stick out as the biggest losers in this scenario.
Data showing the change in average rankings from the eight changes to partcipation for Eurovisoin 2026 (Image: Ben Robertson, ESC Insight)
The Contest Shifts Eastwards
Outwith Poland, the countries that appear to suffer in this new Eurovision universe are those that are on the Western fringes. It is nations like Belgium (-2.57 ranking places per country) and Denmark (-2.56) that fall backwards, as well as Lithuania (-2.51). We can attribute these to the loss of their most loyal voting partners: Belgium loses The Netherlands, Denmark loses Iceland, and Lithuania loses Ireland.
In terms of points on the scoreboard, though, our data shows that Croatia and North Macedonia are the ones feeling a significant drag, with an xP loss of 11.6 and 11.0 points per Contest, respectively. xP is the Expected Points, and in our case, we are not calculating the actual expected points per country, but the change in expected points compared to the received results between 2014 and 2015. It is based on historical data, and needs a pinch of salt attached to that.
As examples of salt pinches, North Macedonia’s only entry in a Eurovision Grand Final since 2014 was ‘Proud’, a jury winner ballad that was unique in shaking Western viewers more than Eastern ones, and Croatia’s points total is dominated by their televote victory in 2024, which again was unique in resonating more westerly.
Expected change in points on the Grand Final scoreboard with our eight participation changes for 2026 (Image: Ben Robertson, ESC Insight)
The biggest winners in our 2026 Contest cohort appear to be those nations towards the East. xP data has Russia very far in front, as huge televote scores in 2015 and 2016 amplify their ranking success in the east, where 1st place rankings give 12 points, but look below that anomaly to see nations like Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia and Greece that are also those with more friendly televote nations now amongst the competition.
Notes on Israel and Ukraine
A careful look at the presented data shows that, for both Ukraine and Israel, there is expected to be a measurable benefit to their televote scores at modern-day Eurovision. The eight changes suggest that Israel can expect to benefit by 4.2 xP and Ukraine by 10.0 xP.
However, for both of these nations, it is important to note that this data was collected from 2014 onwards. For both nations, their televote support has been dominated by events not linked to the Song Contest, in Ukraine’s case since 2022, and in Israel’s case since 2024.
Support for Ukraine in the Song Contest has grown since the Russian invasion and bombardment in 2022. This has been felt strongly in the East, with rankings from Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova being 1.8 places higher than the average over their participations since, which is marginally more than the overall average of 1.5 places. Before the conflict, the five withdrawing nations ranked Ukraine on average 1.8 places lower than their average ranking, but that has since mellowed to a positive ranking of 0.2 places above average. 2025 was particularly notable, with Spain ranking Ukraine 2nd and Ireland 4th, far above the 9.1 average of the remaining nations.
It shows that it has been nations both in the East and West of Europe that have significantly supported Ukraine on the scoreboard in recent years. While we can argue that Ukraine is a beneficiary of this change and does now have two more neighbouring countries competing this year, in reality, the extra points gained by Ukraine are likely to be more tempered than our table suggests, as Ukrainian support has become more uniform.
That then brings us on to Israel. The past two years have seen Israel score huge televotes in the Eurovision Song Contest, correlating to the aftermath of atrocities on October 7th 2023 and the subsequent conflict in Gaza.
If we look at the five withdrawing nations, for reference they are Iceland, Ireland, Slovenia, Spain and The Netherlands. From 2014 to 2023 these countries always, albeit only slightly, ranked Israel lower than other nations competing at the Eurovision Song Contest. However, in 2024 and 2025, these nations combined ranked Israel 1.9 (2024) and 0.9 ranking spots higher than other nations. Sadly, as only Moldova was present in 2024 of the three returnees (they gave Israel ten points, with Ukraine douze points that year), it is hard for us to fairly predict how Israel would do with the returning nations in the current geopolitical climate. However, we do note that, Azerbaijan and Rest of the World excluded, Israel’s other eleven douze points came from Western European nations, including two of the withdrawing nations.
If Israel’s Eurovision televoting support continues to come from Western European nations, the net result of the eight participation changes will be a slight drop in televoting xP for Israel at the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest compared to their 2024 and 2025 showings.
This Could Change The Song Contest
At the extreme scale, taking a swing between Poland and Azerbaijan, the nation with the highest xP gain. It can be believed that in an average Eurovision Grand Final, if both qualify with averagely scoring songs, then we’d now expect Poland to lie roughly 29 points behind Azerbaijan than normal. This is definitely the type of swing that could change the winner in a close year, or could see certain countries qualify above others.
What makes this particular change in Eurovision participation so drastic on the scoreboard is that our five withdrawals have all been further west in Europe than the three returning eastern nations. Such a year-to-year imbalance in participating members and the swing in voting have not seen since the huge Eurovision expanded eastwards in the 1990s.
We have not included data on the other side of the scoreboard, namely the Eurovision juries, because individual jurors change each year and therefore their tastes and patterns are more variable than those of millions of televoters across the continent. While, in theory, juries should be less culturally dependent on televoting-like patterns, we are all too aware of times when Romanian juries give Moldova 12 points, Cyprus to Greece, and other similar voting patterns, despite it being just the decisions of five experts in a room. However, it is fair to expect that the addition of more eastern juries in the contest may push that 29-point swing between Poland and Azerbaijan out even wider. Ukraine’s 2022 victory aside, we have not had a nation described as Eastern win Eurovision since Ukraine’s 2nd victory in 2016. Maybe there has never been a better time than now for someone from the region to step in and compete.
This data may give hope to nations like Moldova and Greece that this is the year where friendly neighbours might be on their side, and may worry nations like Belgium and Poland, who find themselves isolated.
It is important to remember that this data doesn’t mean it is impossible for Poland to win the Eurovision Song Contest, and that with a smash hit, Poland could still score douze points from every nation competing. But it does suggest it will be just a little bit harder for Poland to score than in normal years, and without knowing all the 2026 songs yet, that little difference may be what is decisive.