Canada to join Eurovision Song Contest in 2027

Canada will enter the Eurovision Song Contest in 2027, becoming the first new participant since Australia joined in 2015. CBC/Radio-Canada’s full membership in the European Broadcasting Union, approved on June 25, 2026, made the public broadcaster eligible to submit an entry, and the announcement landed on Canada Day.

The shift matters because Eurovision has moved far beyond its European roots. The EBU says the contest has run since 1956 and is now the world’s largest live music event, a broadcast machine that blends television, voting, ticket demand and national image-making. Canada’s new status also opens access to wider EBU cooperation through the Eurovision News Exchange and Euroradio Music Exchange. CBC/Radio-Canada had been an associate member of the EBU since 1950, so the upgrade turns a 75-year relationship into a direct path onto the contest’s main stage.

Canada already has a visible footprint in Eurovision’s audience economy. CBC said Canadians ranked in the Top 3 in the contest’s Rest of the World vote and were among the largest ticket buyers outside Europe for Eurovision 2026 in Vienna. That kind of engagement helps explain why Eurovision now works as a soft-power platform as much as a song contest, especially for countries that want cultural reach well beyond their own borders.

Canada’s history with the show also runs through Céline Dion, who won in 1988 representing Switzerland and went on to an international career that made her one of the contest’s most famous alumni. In May 2026, Eurovision director Martin Green said the door was open to Canada, but that no formal request or decision had been made. The EBU’s 2025 rule changes then cleared the procedural path by allowing all EBU members that comply with contest rules to participate, and the June 25 membership vote gave CBC/Radio-Canada the standing it needed. For Canada, Eurovision is now a branding tool, a media channel and a geopolitical signal wrapped into one annual spectacle.