Your Eurovision Song Contest Rules

UPDATED AS OF THE 2024.1 CONTEST

Each broadcaster selects an entry via a national final or an internal selection. The selection process is under the responsibility of the Head of Delegation (from now on HoD) of each participating broadcaster. The allocation of the countries to the two Semi-Finals and the Grand Final will be decided by a random draw, that will be aired on YouTube and posted on the official Instagram page and official website.

The maximum number of participants in the 2024.1 edition is 50. However, usually only a maximum total of 26 countries is able to compete in the Grand Final. The maximum number of participants in a semi-final is always 22 countries.

For the 2024.1 edition a quota of participating semi-finalists per continent has been established:

Africa - 5 available spots

Asia - 6 available spots

Europe - 25 available spots

North America - 3 available spots

Oceania - 1 available spot

South America - 2 available spots

Additional participants - 2 available spots

Additional participants may belong to any of the continents and the two spots will be decided by the Reference Group.

These 44 nations will be joined by the direct finalists in the Grand Final.

For the first rebooted edition, the Big 6 consisted of the host country, and five other countries that were drawn in the allocation draw on May 31 2020. From the second to the fifth edition, the Big 6 consisted of the host country, the four members of the Reference Group, and the second placed country of the previous edition. From the sixth edition onwards, the Big 6 has consisted of the Reference Group members (Greece, South Africa & Sweden), and the Top 3 of the previous edition. For the 2024.1 edition the contest saw the following countries be included next to host country South Africa: Greece, Norway, Sweden, Australia and the United States.

Applications for Full members begin with the end of the previous edition. Other players have to wait for the official application period. If a maximum number of participants is reached, the rest of the applicants enter the waiting list and do not have to apply again next edition, rather are automatically put into the quarter-final for the next edition.

Each player can take one country. Check the official list of acceptable countries and territories:

For the 2024.1 edition entries from  Belarus,  Israel and  Russia are banned. The entry that each delegation chooses will be evaluated by the Executive Supervisor of the contest. Invalid applications will not be counted. Once the application is fully submitted and the HoD receives feedback, they cannot change their entry unless approved by the Executive Supervisor with a valid reason.

The applications for the 2024.1 edition started on 13 May 2024. ALL SONGS must have been released after 1 July 2023.

The compositions must not have been commercially released before the release date July 1st, 2023 for the 2024.1 edition.

Songs that competed in the (Junior) Eurovision Song Contest, national finals of (J)ESC or American Song Contest are forbidden from entering YESC.

An artist can compete for a certain country if they or one of their parents come from the participating country or if the artist was born / has lived there. An artist cannot compete in the contest for 3 consecutive times.

Artists who have participated at the (Junior) Eurovision Song Contest in the last 5 years cannot enter.

When a delegation holds a national final, they have the flexibility to pick a song that has previously participated in their national final, under the condition that the song has not been chosen to participate in the Second Chance Contest.

Only the following countries/autonomous regions are able to borrow artists from another country:

- Åland Islands (Sweden)

- Andorra (Catalonia)

- Liechtenstein (Austria/Switzerland)

- Monaco (France)

- San Marino (Italy)

Other territories have to choose entrants who hail from the territory they represent.

To become a Full member, one must participate in the contest 3 consecutive times. To keep the membership, one must continue participating and vote in the contest. Full members are entitled to choose their countries before the official application period begins.

Membership can be lost by:

1. Not participating in the contest

2. Not voting in the contest

To request Full membership apply here:

https://forms.gle/axpGPsFPBAsTuWbg6

Once a country has voted, the votes CANNOT be changed, unless there has been a mistake in the votes of the delegation.

If someone DOES NOT vote, they will be disqualified. For the first few editions of the reboot, a different system of score downgrading was used.

The voting system is going to be similar to the one that was used in the Eurovision Song Contest until 2015: each country/jury awards 12, 10, 8–1 points to their top 10 songs. The results of each HoD shall be determined as follows:

• 12 points shall be allocated to the song having obtained the best rank

• 10 points to the song having obtained the second-best rank

• 8 points to the song having obtained the third-best rank

• 7 points to the next, and so on, down to 1 point having obtained the tenth-best rank from the Participating member

In addition to the participating HoDs in each of the three shows, non-participating viewers will be able to submit their votes. These votes will be considered as the televoting, and will be presented the same way the televoting scores are presented in ESC since 2016.

The winner of each edition will have the right to host the following edition and will be obliged to contact with the Executive Supervisor, and decide the dates for the following edition of Your Eurovision first. Then, the host HoD will have 1 month to decide the host city, host venue and presenter(s) of the next edition. During this period, the host HoD shall come in touch with the Executive Supervisor, in order to check the procedure of the host broadcaster, whether a bidding phase is going to take part or not, and the rest of the details of the hosting. If the host HoD declines to take part in the hosting of the next edition, then the Executive Supervisor will be responsible for the hosting procedure.