The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is determined by a positional voting system. Under the latest version of this system, introduced in , each participating country awards two sets of 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points, based on their ten favourite songs from other countries. One set of rankings is provided by a professional jury, and the other by televoting in that country.
Overview Small, demographically-balanced juries assembled by each participating broadcaster and made up of ordinary people had been used to rank the entries and award the points from each country. After the widespread use of telephone voting in , the ranking resorts to juries only in the event of a televoting malfunctions. In , for example, Eircom's telephone polling system malfunctioned. Irish broadcaster RTÉ did not receive the polling results from them in time, and used the backup jury instead. Between and 2003, the first years of televoting, lines were opened to the public for only five minutes after the performance and recap of the final song. Between and , the lines were opened for ten minutes. From to , they were opened for fifteen minutes. As of , the voting is open for approximately 15 to 25 minutes after the end of the last performance in the semi-finals, and analogously for approximately 25 and 40 minutes after the end of the last performance in the final; the "Rest of the World" vote additionally runs from midnight local time in each timezone on the day of each show. Viewers may cast up to 20 votes per show, for each phone number or payment method; this figure was reduced to 10 from onwards.
In , , and 2025, viewers were allowed to vote during the performances. Since the 2004 contest, the presenters will start the televoting window with an invitation: "Europe, start voting now!" was used until , "Europe and Australia, start voting now!" (due to ) between and , and "Europe, Australia, and the rest of the world, start voting now!" (due to the introduction of the "Rest of the World" vote) since . At the end of the voting period, the presenters will tell viewers to stop with a final countdown, along with the phrase "Europe, Australia, and the rest of the world, stop voting now!". The United Kingdom is not able to vote via SMS or the smartphone app, due to legislation implemented after the 2007 British premium-rate phone-in scandal. San Marino has never been able to use televoting because it does not have a telephone network independent of Italy's.
In the , only the winning song was announced at the conclusion of the event, with the results of the remaining participants unknown. Since , a spokesperson, appointed by each participating broadcaster, was contacted by telephone to reveal the points or votes from its country. This method continued to be used until , except for a few occasions in which the international juries were located in the host country and voted directly on screen. Since , the spokespersons have appeared on screen through a live satellite link.
To announce the points in the final, the contest's presenters invite each spokesperson to read the country's points in French or English. The presenters originally repeated the points in both languages, however, since 2004, the points have only been translated due to time constraints. To offset increased voting time required by a larger number of participating countries, from 2006 to 2015 each spokesperson only read out the top three scores of their respective country's vote: 8, 10 and 12 points. Points from one to seven were added automatically to the scoreboard, while each spokesperson was introduced.
The scoreboard displays the number of points each country has received, and, since , a progress bar indicating the number of countries which have voted. In , as part of a new voting system that was being implemented, it was decided that only the 12-point mark would be read aloud, meaning that points one through eight, as well as ten, were added automatically to the scoreboard. The televoting points were combined and the presenters announced them in order, starting from the country with the lowest score and ending with the country with the highest score, from the televoting. Beginning with the , the televoting points are announced by the presenters based on the juries' rankings, in reverse order.
Voting systems Year Show(s) Points Voting system Final (1 to 10) × 2 Two jurors per country scores each song on a scale of 1 to 10. – 1 x 10 Ten-member juries distribute 10 votes, with each juror giving one vote to its favourite song. 3, 2, 1 Ten-member juries rank their three favourite songs, and cast 3, 2 and 1 points. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Twenty-member juries rank their five favourite songs, and cast 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points. – 5, 3, 1 (3 songs)6, 3 (2 songs)9 (1 song) Ten-member juries distribute 9 points in three possible ways.If all their points go to one song, it gets all the 9 points,If they go to two songs, they got 6 and 3 points,If they go to three or more, the top three gets 5, 3 and 1 points.No jury ever gave 9 points to a single song, but Belgium used the 6, 3 system in 1965. – 1 x 10 Ten-member juries distribute 10 votes, with each juror giving one vote to their favourite song.In 1970, a tie-breaking round was available. – (1 to 5) × 2 Two jurors per country, one aged over 25 and the other under 25, with at least 10 years between their ages, score each song on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 × 10 Ten-member juries distribute 10 votes, with each juror giving one vote to its favourite song. – 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 All countries have at least 11 jury members, raised to 16 in , that rank their top ten songs, and cast 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points.From 1975 to 1979, the points were announced in the order in which the songs performed.In 1980, an ascending format of going from 1–8 points, 10 points and 12 points, was introduced. Twenty countries have jury members and five countries use a televote to decide which songs would get points. – All countries are encouraged to use telephone voting to decide which songs would receive points.In exceptional circumstances where televoting is not possible, only a jury is used. – Every broadcaster is free to make a choice between the full televoting system and the mixed 50/50 system to decide which songs would receive points.In exceptional circumstances where televoting is not possible, only a jury is used. All countries are encouraged to use telephone/SMS voting to decide which songs would receive points.In exceptional circumstances where televoting was not possible at all, only a jury was used.–All showsAll countries use televoting and/or SMS-voting to decide which songs would receive points.Back-up juries are used by each country, with eight members, in the event of a televoting failure. Semi-finalsFinalAll countries use televoting and/or SMS-voting (50%) and five-member juries (50%), except San Marino, which uses 100% jury.This is a so called jury–televote 50/50.In the event of a televoting failure, only a jury is used by that country.In the event of a jury failure, only televoting is used by that country.The two parts of the vote are combined by awarding 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points to the top ten in each discipline,Then the points are merged and converted into a single set of points.In the event of a tie, the televote ranking takes precedence. –All shows – The same as in 2009–2012, except the jury and televote are combined differently;The jurors and televoting each rank all the competing entries, rather than just their top ten.The points are then added together.In the event of a tie, the televote ranking takes precedence. – (12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) × 2 The jury and the televote each award an independent set of points.The jury points are announced first.Then the televoting points are calculated together before being added to the jury points, effectively doubling the points which can be awarded in total. – The same as in 2016–2017, but the points from a country's jury are now calculated using an exponential weight model,giving more weight to higher-ranked songs and lessens the impact of one juror placing a song lower in their rankings.–Semi-finals12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1Only the televote is used to decide which songs receive points.Juries are used by each country as a backup in the event that the televoting cannot deliver a valid result.Online votes from viewers in non-participating countries are aggregated and awarded as one set of points under "Rest of the World".Final(12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) × 2The jury and the televote each award an independent set of points.If the jury of a country cannot deliver a valid result, the televoting result of that country is used in its place.If the televoting cannot deliver a valid result, an aggregated result is used.In case that fails too, the jury result is used.Online votes from viewers in non-participating countries are aggregated and awarded as one set of points under "Rest of the World".–presentAll shows(12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) × 2The same as in 2018–2022, with the addition of the "Rest of the World" set of points and juries consist of seven members as opposed to five. The most-used voting system, other than the current one, was last used for the . This system was used from 1957 to 1961 and from 1967 to 1969. Ten jurors in each country, each cast one vote for their favourite song. In 1969, this resulted in a four-way tie for first place, between the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Spain, with no tie-breaking procedure. A second round of voting in the event of a tie was introduced to this system in 1970.
From 1962 to 1966, a voting system similar to the current one was used. In 1962, each country awarded its top three 1, 2 and 3 points. In 1963 the top five were awarded 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 points. From 1964 to 1966, each country usually awarded its top three 1, 3, and 5 points. With the latter system, a country could choose to give points to two countries, instead of three, giving 3 to one and 6 to the other. In 1965, Belgium awarded the United Kingdom 6 points and Italy 3. Although it was possible to give one country 9 points, this never occurred.
The , , and contests saw the jurors "in vision" for the first time. Each country was represented by two jurors: one older than 25 and one younger, with at least 10 years' difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 5 points to each song. In the previous system of ten jurors was used. In 1975, the current system was introduced. Spokespeople were next seen on screen in , with a satellite link to the venue.
The had its first semi-final, with a slight change in voting: countries which did not qualify from the semi-final would be allowed to cast points in the final. This resulted in 's "Wild Dances" by Ruslana finishing first, with a record 280 points. If the voting had been conducted as it had been from 1956 to 2003, when only finalist countries could vote, 's "" by Željko Joksimović would have won the contest with 190 points: a 15-point lead over "Wild Dances", who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the final. In 2006, were able to vote in the semi-final and the final, despite their non-participation due to a scandal in the selection process, which resulted in progressing to the final instead of .