Rest of the World in the Eurovision Song Contest

In 2023, the Eurovision Song Contest introduced a "Rest of the World" vote in which viewers from non-participating countries could cast votes for their favourites, with their votes aggregated and presented as one individual set of points, equivalent to one participating country.

The flag used to represent the "Rest of the World" on the voting website of the Eurovision Song Contest.^[1]

Background and introduction

The first rest of the world vote for a Eurovision event was held in 2014, when audiences from non-participating countries in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 were able to vote for their favourites online. The vote had no influence over the result of the contest, but the winner of the online vote was presented with a special trophy following the contest.^[2] The Junior Eurovision Song Contest switched to a full online vote in 2017, replacing the televoting; viewers could vote for any country regardless of their place of residence. The then-executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest and Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Jon Ola Sand, stated that an online vote could be implemented in Eurovision in future editions.^[3]

On 22 November 2022, the European Broadcasting Union announced that, starting from 2023, the Eurovision Song Contest would include a televote from non-participating countries for the first time. Viewers from those countries are able to vote in all shows, with their votes aggregated and presented as one individual set of points under "Rest of the World" or "RoW". Those viewers are able to cast votes via the Esc.vote online platform, which requires ownership of a credit or debit card for verification.^[4][5]

Voting

Points awarded by the Rest of the World in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023^[6]

Score	Semi-final 1	Semi-final 2	Final
12 points	Israel	Albania	Israel
10 points	Finland	Armenia	Finland
8 points	Latvia	Austria	Armenia
7 points	Sweden	Australia	Sweden
6 points	Portugal	Slovenia	Albania
5 points	Czechia	Belgium	Ukraine
4 points	Moldova	Lithuania	Norway
3 points	Croatia	Iceland	Croatia
2 points	Serbia	Estonia	Spain
1 point	Malta	Georgia	France

Points awarded by the Rest of the World in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024^[6]

Score	Semi-final 1	Semi-final 2	Final
12 points	Ukraine	Israel	Israel
10 points	Ireland	Netherlands	Ukraine
8 points	Croatia	Armenia	Croatia
7 points	Slovenia	Estonia	Ireland
6 points	Luxembourg	Switzerland	Switzerland
5 points	Lithuania	Greece	Armenia
4 points	Serbia	Georgia	Luxembourg
3 points	Portugal	Norway	Greece
2 points	Australia	San Marino	France
1 point	Finland	Czechia	Italy

Points awarded by the Rest of the World in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025^[6]

Score	Semi-final 1	Semi-final 2	Final
12 points	Albania	Israel	Israel
10 points	Ukraine	Latvia	Albania
8 points	Iceland	Czechia	Ukraine
7 points	Sweden	Greece	Greece
6 points	Poland	Finland	Sweden
5 points	Portugal	Lithuania	Finland
4 points	Estonia	Denmark	Poland
3 points	Norway	Malta	Spain
2 points	Croatia	Australia	Estonia
1 point	Netherlands	Ireland	Austria

Contributing countries

Since the vote was introduced in 2023, the EBU has revealed a list of around 10 non-participating countries, in no particular order, which provided the most amount of votes across all 3 live shows. To date, 7 countries have appeared in the list in every contest where the Rest of the World vote was used: Canada, Hungary, Mexico, Slovakia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Table key

X	Appeared in the top 10 list – 10 countries that gave most of the votes that contributed to the Rest of the World across all shows in that respective edition
	Did not appear in the list – May have voted in the Rest of the World vote, but did not appear in the list posted by the EBU, as one of 10 countries that provided the most votes
†	Ineligible – Could not vote as part of the Rest of the World vote, as a participating country in the contest that year, and therefore voted independently
	Previously participated – Countries that have taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest at least once in the past, but not in the respective edition

Country	2023[7]	2024[8]	2025[9]
Bulgaria		X
Canada	X	X	X
Chile	X
Hungary	X	X	X
Kosovo	X		X
Luxembourg	X	†	†
Mexico	X	X	X
New Zealand	X
Romania	†	X	X
Slovakia	X	X	X
South Africa		X	X
Turkey	X	X	X
United Arab Emirates	X	X	X
United States	X	X	X
Total no. of countries/territories that voted[a]	107	119	109

Notes

1. The number of participating countries have been subtracted from the total, as the figures given by the EBU include countries that have participated in the contest, which cannot vote as part of the Rest of the World.