The EBU has confirmed that 41 countries will participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. These are the same 39 countries that competed at Eurovision 2020, along with returnees Armenia and Montenegro.
Armenia had withdrawn from the contest in 2021 following events in the country. Montenegro had withdrawn from Eurovision 2020 and 2021, citing financial issues.
The list of officially competing broadcasters also confirms that Austria, Cyprus, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia and the UK will be competing. Prior to the EBU’s announcement, the respective broadcasters of those countries had not officially confirmed their participation in Eurovision 2022.
Not appearing on the list is Turkey. In June, the EBU confirmed they were in talks with Turkish broadcaster TRT regarding a Eurovision comeback. However, after the departure of TRT’s Director General İbrahim Eren in July, it appears that the talks did not result in Turkey making a comeback.
Belarus remains off the list. The country was not allowed to compete at Eurovision 2021 after not entering a suitable song. In June, the EBU suspended BTRC’s membership, meaning it lost membership privileges, including the ability to participate in Eurovision.
Eurovision Song Contest Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl said:
“We are so excited that we once again have over 40 broadcasters competing to win the iconic Eurovision trophy in Turin next May.
“The team from Rai are working hard on preparations to welcome all the delegations to a new Host City and ensuring the Eurovision Song Contest will provide the excitement and state-of-the-art spectacle expected by nearly 200 million viewers.”
Broadcasters are in the midst of selecting their acts for Eurovision 2022. Some are using national finals, some are internally selecting, while others have not revealed any information about their selection method.
The 41 competing countries matches the tally of Eurovision 2019. The highest number of competing countries at Eurovision has been 43.
Eurovision 2022 – Confirmed participating countries
- 🇦🇱 Albania – RTSH
- 🇦🇺 Australia – SBS
- 🇦🇲 Armenia – AMPTV
- 🇦🇹 Austria – ORF
- 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan – Ictimai TV
- 🇧🇪 Belgium – RTBF
- 🇧🇬 Bulgaria – BNT
- 🇭🇷 Croatia – HRT
- 🇨🇾 Cyprus – CyBC
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic CT
- 🇩🇰 Denmark – DR
- 🇪🇪 Estonia – ERR
- 🇫🇮 Finland – YLE
- 🇫🇷 France – FT
- 🇬🇪 Georgia – GPB
- 🇩🇪 Germany – ARD/NDR
- 🇬🇷 Greece – ERT
- 🇮🇸 Iceland – RUV
- 🇮🇪 Ireland – RTE
- 🇮🇱 Israel – IPBC/Kan
- 🇮🇹 Italy – RAI (Host Broadcaster)
- 🇱🇻 Latvia – LTV
- 🇱🇹 Lithuania – LRT
- 🇲🇹 Malta – PBS
- 🇲🇩 Moldova – TRM
- 🇲🇪 Montenegro – RTCG
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands – AVROTROS
- 🇲🇰 North Macedonia – MKRTV
- 🇳🇴 Norway – NRK
- 🇵🇱 Poland – TVP
- 🇵🇹 Portugal – RTP
- 🇷🇴 Romania – TVR
- 🇷🇺 Russia – RTR
- 🇸🇲 San Marino – RTV
- 🇷🇸 Serbia – RTS
- 🇸🇮 Slovenia – RTVSLO
- 🇪🇸 Spain – TVE
- 🇸🇪 Sweden – SVT
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland – SRG / SSR
- 🇺🇦 Ukraine – UA:PBC
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom – BBC
What do you think? Are you happy with the lineup of Eurovision 2022? Which acts would you like to see represent their countries? Tell us your thoughts below!
All I ask is that nobody drops out of Eurovision 2022 as we’ve had withdrawals and disqualifications over the last five contests I have watched since 2016, other than 2018. Let’s keep it at 41 please.
I had hoped we would get at least 40 countries for 2022, and now we’re getting 41! I expected Armenia to return, but didn’t expect Montenegro to reappear, but it’s nice to see them back. Sadly, we won’t see Hungary or Turkey or other countries return, but I wasn’t them to return anyway. Based on what we know now about several countries’ plans or guesses on what they’ll do, I would like to give out my brief thoughts on each of the participants. Albania: Once again, they will use FiK to select their entry, and while they have made it… Read more »
Thank you. That took me a long time to write, to the point I didn’t publish until this morning. It’s hard to make any predictions right now because we don’t know every thing yet. We don’t know which countries will do a national final or internal selection, and the 2021 results and past track records can’t always been relied on to predict the future. Countries that succeeded this year could flop next year, and Countries that didn’t qualify this year could win it all in 2022. Some countries might make a comeback and qualify for the first time in years,… Read more »
I think we’re going to get a lot of national finals for 2022, now that the mostly internally reselected artists have had their chance to perform. It will be interesting to see what each country that chooses to do a national final will have for their selection of songs. I understand the feeling when some countries have failed so many times a row that it just seems like they’ll never get out of it, but there’s always a chance they could make a come back.
Probably this year will be more rock ( after Maneskin), is time for Czech Republic to send We all poop.
Yay great news for Armenia
Even greater if they bring Athena back! She deserves her chance
Feel sorry for that Andorran girl who raised all that money got the president on side but apparently blocked by the TV company
I have a feeling that Montenegro is preparing something good.. Hope they’ll not do a national selection and just internally pick a popular regional artist as they did in both 2014 and 2015 and qualified!
I hope Montenegro has use their time off wisely to come up with something that’s actually good enough to make the final. That would be something amazing to see since their last appearance was 2015.
Well, it turns out the broadcaster will not mount montevizija for 2022. It might be an internal selection after all but that’s all I know at this point
montenegro arriving with those brand new luxurious cars slaying the pack
Never doubted Armenia’s return since they confirmed their participation on JESC, but it’s great to know it’s official now. Though they haven’t been lucky recently, I usually like their entries.
The colors make me excited that once again we wont have the boring blue scoreboard used for so many years. If I also hear that the stage wont be designed by Wieder i ll be over the moon. Vamos Italia
that video presentation really got me hyped
It is more likely to see Jordan or Libya at ESC (full members btw) than Turkey or Kazakhstan. Even another Azeri win won’t bring them in.
If Azerbaijan won the contest, there is absolutely no way that TRT wouldn’t participate.
One thing I hope we don’t get in 2022 is the p-word. No more tape performance, isolation in hotels, no contact with others, no bubbles…
Libya are an EBU member, let’s send them an invitation.
I know you’re pro-Kazakhstan and ‘the bigger, the better’, too. But you might be stretching it a little bit too much right here. I sense some surefire downvotes coming in.
I mean, they’re full members. They don’t even need an invitation.
True story. Still a rather unpopular demand, though. Did you recently see how many downvotes someone hoping for Canada’s future participation received?
Quadruple them.
Sadly, a surprising number of people around here appear to be quite xenophobic in general.
Anyways … I’m with you, pal.
Well… I don’t mean to disappoint you, but actually, I have concerns about Kazakhstan joining. The EBU should be careful in dealing with dictatorships. I’m not sure how it makes sense to suspend Belarus but keep Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan. Russia. Even Poland has turned public television into a government mouthpiece. The EBU are a broadcasting union, some consistency would be nice.
Fully agreed. From a musical standpoint I’d love to bring in Kazakhstan, but not as long as they’re a dictatorship.
I suppose what broke the camel’s back regarding Belarus was their proposed 2021 entries directly mocking the EBU, who probably felt personally insulted to let such a broadcaster compete. EBU not commenting on TVP’s current status is making me uncomfortable though, especially given they even hosted the last two JESCs all while turning into a propaganda tool of the Polish government.
how about no… they share zero values with europe lmao
Tunisia is probably the best candidate in North Africa, maybe even the only one
If only Slovakia would return to the contest, that’d be great.
I’m glad that Turkey isn’t back, their views are narrow and they don’t do justice to the values that Eurovision brings. Good example of the country’s attitude was around a week ago with the sofagate.
really? what happened?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofagate
This pretty much wraps it up, if you’ve got time to read it. It’s just awful to see how sexist some countries can be, not that everything is perfect everywhere else, but at least we have seen progress in many countries.
Well … ‘around a week ago’ must have been like four months ago. Also, denying von der Leyen a seat could as well be interpreted as Turkey just being a terribly led, disorganised country. 😉
I guess at this point, Erdogan does whatever he thinks will secure his power. Basically, once he feels he can no longer ignore the popular demand, he’ll make TRT return to the contest.
Other than that, I’m sure he’ll always keep on using external affairs as a tool for internal politics and his personal poll numbers.
So yeah … raise your voices, Turkish Eurovision lovers!
My mistake, Ursula only commented it once again and NYTimes only updated their article! Anyway, Turkey’s ignorance and the overall gloating on their own country being the best won’t last forever, Erdogan isn’t immune to death and the army trying to take over in 2016 was a glimbse of hope, that the country still has people who won’t close their eyesjust because of nationalism.
One more thing I’d like to point out: I’m glad Russia is still in. At this moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had decided to pull out of it despite all of their good results. If you look at the politics, that really wasn’t for granted. Sometimes it already feels like we’re in the middle of the Cold War 2.0. But yet, that’s the very spirit of Eurovision … whatever may divide us, after all, us simple people are all the same in lots of ways. With our mutual love for good music and good entertainment being only… Read more »
Yes, exactly. Amen, inshallah and whatever. And even if it’s just for three nights only per year … I think we can do better than the momentary state of the world makes us believe.
*puttingsomeflowersinmyhairnow*
I hope we have an apolitical contest as much as possible, but you know how they always sneak through. We don’t know what kind of problems will crop as the season proceeds.
More good news. I already said how cool it is to have Montenegro back, and now I’m saying the same for Armenia. Honestly, it’s like they were always here. Armenia almost always had good, or at least ambitious songs. No matter how much I’d look for forward to a potential Armenian NF, I am really rooting for Athena Manoukian to be internally selected. Chains On You is a huge bop, and my big grower from 2020. Of course, I am also glad that nobody withdrew. If I’m not mistaken, we should be getting 40 of Estonian hopefuls (songs, or at… Read more »
Completely off topic but why is ‘Turin 2022’ smaller than ‘Song Contest’ in the logo. Only in the event page, in the official website it’s the right size, but everywhere else they are using this logo with the smaller letters. It’s driving me crazy. Sorry for the nonsense rant.
I genuinely thought the UK was going to withdraw.
I didn’t. The BBC obviously haven’t cared about results in years, I don’t know why they would start now.
Yeah, I didn’t think UK was going to withdraw, but I don’t have a lot of faith that they will learn anything from the zero point result. It’ll just be the same thing all over again.
LOL. Nailed it.
I am glad we are still taking part but a bit of me wonders if a few years out of the contest would have been better for the UK in the long run. They could start afresh with a new broadcaster and a new selection format.
But is there any chance for that to happen? From my (German) outsider perspective, the BBC doesn’t seem to bother if nobody takes notice of their own national representative, as long as they score compelling Grand Final viewing figures.
Which, if true, would also mean that as long as the Grand Final viewing figures are deemed ‘good enough’, nothing could even make them care for real, while they also wouldn’t want to pass the Eurovision rights on to some other station.
Am I any right?
But why did you think so? It’s the BBC’s most European show. The BBC is Britain’s only public broadcaster. And regardless of the Brexit, the UK still is one of Europe’s powerhouses and committed to the European idea, values and work.
Personally, I’d never worry about the former ‘Big 4’, Scandinavia and the Nordic countries, the BeNe- (unfortunately not -Lux) countries and the Baltics. I have a feeling that they feel obliged to take part, just to send out a pro-European message.
I’m not sure about Ireland, though.
Why doubt Ireland?
Because of their bad results. I wouldn’t rule out they might one day take a break like Portugal did.
now let’s hope by May 2022 the situation with the pandemic will be much better & more people will be able to go enjoy the shows live :fingerscrossed:
I hope things are better by May 2022 so that Australia is able to actually be there in person
International travel is resuming once again on November 1st here in Australia. Pretty sure we will be there.
That’s great!
That will be in January as usual.
I told you not to expect for Turkey to return and I was right. Now I just hope that there won’t be any additional withdrawals.
I am delighted that Amenia and montenegro have returned put I love for Bosnia Turkey Hungary Slovakia Luxembourg return
Can’t take you seriously after what you said about Valentina. Sorry.
The guy has different personnalities, it’s an illness, he is unstable and unbalanced, look at his comments everywhere, he is totally biased, it’s a clinical case and a pure France and others hater whatever they do, and a nordic sucker whatever they do, yes to be clear he is sick….. what can you expect from someone like that, toxicity and stupidity, nothing else, sad wiwibloggs let us go through this clown. He should marry the pityful “bird lover” they fit so well together, two donkeys…
Lol he is so sick that these two donkeys could be the same person in fact, who knows… a chidish brat nothing else.
Calm down. All I ever see is you attacking Whisker.
There are quite a lot of countries that have not made the final for at least three years or more. I’d like to see a comeback for many of them, but the chances of all 15(!) making it to the final is very slim, if not unlikely, unless some of the usual qualifiers uncharacteristically mess up. By the time 2022 rolls around, the following current list of non-qualifiers’ last grand final appearance would have occurred: 3 years ago (2019): Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, North Macedonia, Slovenia 4 Years ago (2018): Austria, Ireland 5 Years ago (2017): Armenia, Croatia, Poland,… Read more »
Of course, the song quality and semifinal placement can play a big role too. Some of The countries who qualified this year that might not qualify next year, and those that didn’t qualify this year might do better next year. You never know.
Kazakhstan really should have been invited by now.
The country I want back most is five-time-winners Luxembourg.
Una could you elaborate please?
Bring back Evridiki and George Theofanous.
Yes. Singer, composer, wife, husband. 1994, the best song Cyprus ever sent.
Yeah, I see that – on the very same stage too.
Maybe they could send a song in Luxembourgish, for the sake of the language – same way Ireland’s TG4 enter the junior contest. I don’t think RTL are even an EBU member anymore, though. Sad.
It’s a shame the EBU can’t arrange for a larger entertainment-oriented Luxembourgish broadcaster to enter the contest with the consent of RTL…
It just seems like a waste.
“ These are the same 39 countries that competed at Eurovision 2020” – should be 2021, not 2020. No one competed in 2020 :/
I want Prague 2023. A Czech win might be the only thing tempting enough to bring slovakia ever back.
They better bring it next year then.
Then let’s hope the Czech Republic has some potentially competitive entries in their selection this year. I think a Czech victory is a long way off for now due to their track record, But that doesn’t mean they can’t work hard for it in the future. It’s just gonna be a long-term plan.
Their track record might be off but that didn’t stop Portugal 😀
Fair enough. Track record isn’t always everything. It’s all about what you bring to the current contest. Even if you’ve sucked in the past, you could be a champion the next year.
Sorry for Hungary and Turkey but happy for Montenegro and Armenia (fingers crossed for Manoukian)
I’d like to see 44 Countries for 2023 with Kazakhstan debut and Turkey / Hungary return
No Hungary or Turkey (As expected). Happy Armenia and Montenegro are back! Still waiting for a day Kazakhstan finally gets invited.
i was hoping turkey would come back until the very last moment, sad. at least we got armenia and montenegro. can’t wait !
so happy to see armenia back!!
I was hoping for the return of Turkey and their rock anthems at least (knowing that Hungary was most definitely going to stay out once again). Anyways it’s nice to have over 40 participating countries once again. Looking forward to the 2022 contest!!!
@Robyn, the Belgian broadcaster this year is RTBF.
Sad for Hungary 🙁
Fantastic 41 country start in esc 2022 Turin and return Armenia , Montenegro crosing fingers all county in . Of course, I keep my fingers crossed for the Balkans, but most importantly for Croatia
Well, it’s another year with Turkey and Hungary out (I was kinda hoping with the latter it’d be like their past withdrawals and they’d be back after a year…alas), but I’m very pleased that nobody’s withdrawn and quite happy to see Armenia and Montenegro back!
Still wishing to see Canada as a participant.
I would not be opposed to that in the slightest.
As a Canadian, I don’t want to see my country debut in ESC to be honest. CBC/SRC is the EBU associate member for Canada, and the contest is scheduled in the middle of the NHL playoffs – hockey is literally a religion here. Thankfully the geo-blocking has been lifted for us from the official ESC YouTube channel as far as live streams are concerned, and Omni Television (a major cable channel) has been airing the contest here since 2019 – the semifinals of the 2021 contest went live for the first time with the final on a 21-hour time delay.… Read more »
As a fellow North American Eurovision fan, I also wouldn’t want my home country, the United States, in the contest either.
What’s kind of interesting though (albeit I highly doubt this will be news to you), is that anti-americanism is pretty strong all across Europe ever since the Iraq War, if not earlier. Even among the traditional allies.
Canadians, on the other hand, appear to be regarded as some sort of remote relatives by most of the Western Europeans … basically like our Ozzie friends.
I’m not surprised America’s reputation is currently in the gutter, especially during this pandemic.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Stephanie! I likewise am thankful for the geo-blocking being lifted for us. Its true that NHL playoffs coincide with ESC, but I personally don’t think the two would affect viewership of the other. ESC is really only three days (two of which are during working hours here). Either way, Eurovision certainly didn’t impact my viewing of the Habs games at the time.
Damn, what’s with all the dislikes? Would at least like to hear from someone who feels that way, provide their thoughts. 🙂
As a Canadian I would love for us to participate. If Australia can, why not us? We’ve had our fair share of participants enter the contest after all. 😉
I would like to know how much money associate members contribute to the EBU compared to actual members. Not just the contest participation fee, but year-round. It seems unfair that non-members can just swoop in every May for all the fun and then disappear for the rest of the year when all the real work needs to be done.
My ideal would be for the EBU to always have 45 or 46 participating countries. And if they can’t make them up from EBU member states, just invite others from all around the world. Each invitee would have to pay its fair share to take part and enter in the semi finals. If they reach a Top 10 result, they’ll be invited back for the consecutive year. Else they won’t. EBU members always will be prioritized above other countries (sorry, Australia, but at least you’d be prioritized above other guest countries). There won’t ever be more than 45 or 46… Read more »
Thanks for sharing, Jonas & Nils!! I think you both raise very valid, even excellent, points. 🙂
People are haters fr, they hate you cause they aint you
Is it weird that I’m both shocked and not shocked that Turkey aren’t returning?
I think them not returning for 2017, in spite of the fact that their support for the Crimean Tatars is key to their political stance on Ukraine, was the moment i knew that only a government change could return the country to ESC. I do hope it happens one day.
I wasn’t holding my breath for a turkey return, Because I didn’t think it would happen, and I wasn’t surprised that they’re not on the list.
I’m not surprised either at all. Not even for Bosnia and Herzegovina as I know that they have a lot of problems with their budget plus EBU put them sanctions for their debts.
Yeah, until the debt situation is resolved, Bosnia and Herzegovina are not gonna be back at the contest. Although, How come bosnia hasn’t gotten to help it needs to pay off that debt?
B&H television has a terrible financial difficulties.
Was this a tease to the theme of next year’s contest?
Because these white 3d models of the Turin mole looks GOOD
i was thinking the same thing!