How the scoring system works at Eurovision 2025

Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett/EBU

Here’s your fast (and fun) guide to how Eurovision scoring and voting works so you’ll be ready to cheer, gasp, and yell at the TV like a seasoned stan.

Eurovision 2025 is here! It's time to brace for the most fabulous and utterly addictive chaotic spectacle in the world.

If its your first time or you've only ever dipped your toe in the Eurovision pool, you may wonder, “wait, why are they screaming ‘DOUZE POINTS!’ every five minutes, and who’s actually winning?”

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

The complicated scoring and random French bits trip lots of folks up, but once you've got the lay of the land you'll see how the Eurovision scoring and voting system delivers the drama dialled up to 11.

The semi-final scramble

Eurovision isn’t just one massive show, it’s a whole week of musical mayhem.

With around 35+ countries competing, there’s way too much to fit into one night. So, they need to trim the number of performances down before the Grand Final. That’s where the two semifinals come in.

Nail-baiting elimination. Think Survivor, but with more choreography.

Each semi has about 15–18 acts, and only the top 10 from each survive the cut. This year there are 37 countries competing, and semi-final 1 has 15 competing entries, and semi-final 2 has 16. Here's the running order.

The “Big Five” (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK) and the host country skip the semis voting altogether and go straight through to the Grand Final. They still perform, though.

The rest have to battle it out. And yes, Australia has to qualify like everyone else.

Countries in one group vote for one another. If Australia is performing in semi-final 2, we don’t get to vote for entries in semi-final 1. You can vote for your favourite entry… except for your own country. Details on how we can vote from Australia are below.

Crucially, in the semis, only public votes are used to determine placing and progression to the Grand Final.

The Grand Final usually has places for 26 songs – 20 entries (10 qualifiers from each semi-final) and the guaranteed Big Five, plus the hosts who automatically make the final.

The Grand Final: Where points get wild

If you think preferential voting in Australian elections is complicated, wait until you see how they work out the Eurovision winner.

Each country gives out two sets of points: one from a professional jury and one from the public televote.

The jury is made up of five music experts from each country — think producers, singers, radio hosts. They watch rehearsals and rate the acts based on things like vocals, staging, and overall impact.

Their top ten songs each get points: 1 through 8, then 10, and finally the golden DOUZE POINTS! 12 is the highest score you can get from any country.

Oh yeah…historically Eurovision was broadcast in French, English and the host nation’s language. While this varies a bit from year to year, the traditional French has stuck for the voting mostly because of how fun it is to shout “DOUZE POINTS” in a terrible French accent.

But that’s just half the madness. The public across all participating countries also get to vote (including Australia), and their collective favourites are turned into another set of points in the same format.

Voting from Down Under

To vote, Australian viewers will need to tune into the LIVE broadcast of semi-final 2 on Friday 16 May at 5:00am AEST and the Grand Final on Sunday 18 May at 5:00am AEST.

There will be a bunch of voting prompts that appear on screen, which are simple to follow.

Last year Australians had to vote online via esc.vote.

More details to come this week on all options available.

The Big Reveal: Hold onto your sequins

Here’s where things go from polite to absolutely bonkers.

First, each country’s jury votes are announced, usually with a local celebrity grinning into the camera and dramatically declaring “Our DOUZE POINTS go to…"

Then comes the public (votes from viewers at home).

This used to be called the televote. It  goes way back to the early days of Eurovision when the votes were phoned in literally... as in, landline to landline. Each country’s spokesperson would call the host broadcaster to deliver their points, and naturally, they had to announce themselves.

So, you’d hear things like, “Hello, London calling!” or “Hello, Paris calling!” It was a polite way of saying, “Hey, it’s us, don’t hang up! We’ve got our scores!”

Fast-forward to today where we’ve got satellites, fibre optic cables, and technology that can beam a kitten video from Oslo to Sydney in half a second and folk no longer phone in. But Eurovision being Eurovision, this cute and kitsch tradition is kept alive.

Although these days, it's for the presenters giving the jury scores.

So even though nobody’s actually calling anymore, the presenters still say “Hello, Sweden calling!” or “Hello, Estonia calling!” partly out of habit, partly for nostalgia, but mostly because it’s camp as.

The public vote is tallied up behind the scenes, and read out by the presenters starting with the country that was last with the juries until the finally read out the final vote and a winner is announced!

Once you understand the scoring, Eurovision becomes more than just a glittery stage show. It’s a high-stakes, unpredictable battle of music and spectacle, with alliances, surprises, and drama at every turn.

Next time you watch, dive in with a bit of knowledge, pick your favourites, and brace yourself and when that final DOUZE POINTS is handed out, you’ll be right there in the thick of the madness.

More detailed information about voting from Australia is available on the SBS website.

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