Bulgaria wins the 2026 Eurovision grand final as Australia places fourth — as it happened

Onto the last of the jury votes. France and Poland will be happy.

• Finland gives their 12 points to France.
• United Kingdom give their points to France (and only three points to Australia — are we even part of the Commonwealth?).
• A moody Latvia sends theirs to Czechia.
• Serbia flings the big points to Greece (and says good morning to Australia, very polite).
• Moldova sends the big dog to Poland.
• Croatia to Serbia.
• Lithuania to Bulgaria, sending them even further into first place!
• Romania goes with AUSTRALIA!!!!! Te iubesc, Romania!
• Austria, the host country, sends theirs to Poland.

Bulgaria is currently in first with 204 points.

Australia and Denmark are tied in second with 165 points.

United Kingdom and Austria both end up with one point. Damn.

— Alexandra Koster

Points, points, points. And it's good news for Denmark.

Here's the latest:

• Greece sends their 12 points to Cyprus (a reciprocal agreement... interesting).
• Czechia throws theirs at Denmark (and Australia moves to second place!).
• Denmark gives theirs to Bulgaria! You can't even be mad — we love Bangaranga.
• France yeet theirs to Norway.
• Norway sends theirs to Denmark.
• Italy goes with Belgium (their first big bump of the night).

— Alexandra Koster

MO VOTES. MO PROBLEMS.

• Cyprus gives their 12 points to Greece (and says good morning to Australia).
• Georgia sends theirs to France.
• Montenegro throws their points at Serbia (big metal fans, obvs).
• Romania gives their big points to AUSTRALIA!!!! (We love you too, Romania!!!!!)
• Poland (and another Alexandra, rise up!) sends their points to Israel. That's the first 12-pointer to go to Israel.

Australia is in 4th place right now. Bulgaria is leading, followed by Italy and Finland.

— Alexandra Koster

The votes continue to roll in...

• Germany sends their 12 points to Poland.
• Belgium yeets theirs to Poland too.
• Portugal gives theirs to Albania.
• Sweden goes with Finland.
• Albania gives their 12 to Italy.

Also worth noting: Sweden, Austria and the UK are on one point each. The former are a surprise — the latter is a blessing, considering some were predicting zero points for the UK.

Lithuania have 0. RIP.

Australia has slipped to 4th place. Italy is number one!

— Alexandra Koster

Australia sends their 12 points to BULGARIA! BANGARANGA BABY!

We are currently in third place.

— Alexandra Koster

The points continue to roll in...

• Bulgaria sends their 12 points to Malta (and we get a few more points).
• Azerbaijan send their big 12 to Italy.
• San Marino sends theirs to Malta — the third time it's received a country's big vote! The countries love Malta!
• Estonia sends their 12 to Finland.
• Israel goes with ... AUSTRALIA!

— Alexandra Koster

Alright, the first votes from countries are beginning to roll in.

Here's how they've landed:

• Switzerland gives their 12 points to Ukraine (and 6 to Australia, thanks!).
• Malta gives theirs to Bulgaria (and a few more to Australia).
• Ukraine sends their big 12 points to Malta (and AIDAN is so happy, it's adorable).
• Luxembourg sends its 12 points to Romania.

Australia is currently sitting on 26 points — first place!

— Alexandra Koster

It's time to reveal how Europe and Australia (and the always confusing rest-of-world) voted.

In rehearsals, the whole sequence was a bit of a disaster. To be fair, it's pretty complicated with a lot of moving parts and the hosts are... ah, well, you've seen them.

After we find out the results of the jury vote, the televote will be presented in a slightly different way to last year with new graphics.

Fingers crossed all goes smoothly.

— Ben Lewis

LIKE, RIGHT NOW.

— Alexandra Koster

Oh god, we've now got a performance of Billy Joel's Vienna (because we're in Vienna, get it?).

It's an unwritten rule of this song that if you hear it and you're a woman in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or hell, any age, you must begin dissociating and thinking about all your life choices.

How did we get here? Would our inner child be proud of us? Will our hopes and dreams ever come true? How can we enjoy the present moment and all the small things in life?

I'm not sure, kids, but we'll get there.

— Alexandra Koster

I've gone into the pits of the internet (literally just scrolling through X) to bring you what everyone is speaking about right now.

1. This BTS shot of Finland's Ms Violin literally belting it from one side of the stage to the other, in heels, no less.

2. Everyone pouring their support around the UK's act LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER, for being this year's Miss Congeniality and cheering everyone on.

And here's another photo of our UK friend, who was apparently "adopted" by Denmark after he was left alone on his couch.

3. Czechia have allegedly sent in a formal complaint after technical issues saw Young Daniel's performance glitch slightly. Apparently, one of the cameramen in the mirror area fell down (RIP).

Fans are requesting Czechia be able to perform again, but the Eurovision organisers have shut that down.

"There was a small camera issue during the performance of Czechia's song at the Grand Final of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest," a Eurovision spokesperson has said.

"The artist’s performance and audio were not affected so the song will not be performed again."

4. An interview with Germany's entrant is doing the rounds for her thoughts on feminism.

5. A Palestinian flag was waved during Israel's performance, according to footage snapped.

— Alexandra Koster

The Eurovision press room loves something a little different that pushes the creative boundaries of what's possible on stage.

Bulgaria certainly did that without any fancy technology; just clever camera angles and a set on wheels that was spun around the singer and dancers to give a strangely disorienting effect.

It won the Marcel Bezençon Artistic Award and was very well received here.

A dark horse for the win perhaps?

Finland is a favourite for a reason and we've seen why again in this final. A "duet" between man and violin; an 18th century violin no less, which required special permission from Eurovision bosses to be played live.

Fun fact: musicians are normally pretending to play, because actually using them would slow down the transitions between songs (and be a pain for the already overworked audio technicians).

— Ben Lewis

While we SBS News journos are usually bound to be editorially impartial as public broadcasters, all bets are off during Eurovision.

Because we have opinions. And we're going to share them.

These are each of our favourite performances of the night (morning?).

1. Australia (naturally and contractually)
2. Bulgaria
3. Greece

1. Australia
2. Moldova
3. Bulgaria

1. "German fire woman love of my life"
2. "Also shout out to Estonia who had a great song and should have made it to the final"
3. Delta obvs

1. ONE TICKET TO MOLDOVA, PLEASE
2. I also love the cat man from Greece
3. I'm also still ascending thanks to the Croatian Pussycat Dolls (someone please help get me down, I'm serious)

— Alexandra Koster

Great question, internet void.

Fun fact: The backstage team at Eurovision only has about 35 seconds to change the set.

That's all the time they get to make sure the props are swapped out for the next performance and to get all the performers ready, mic'd up, and in the right spot.

"We call it the Formula 1 tyre change," Richard van Rouwendaal, the Dutch Eurovision stage manager told BBC last year.

"Each person in the crew can only do one thing. You run on stage with one light bulb or one prop. You always walk on the same line. If you go off course, you will hit somebody."

"It's a bit like ice skating."

The stage crew has about two weeks to practice before the big day.

— Alexandra Koster

Eurovision's final winner is decided by professional juries and public voting — the latter has been the reason behind the recent controversy.

Viewers can vote online, by text message or by phone up to 10 times each.

Each country in the competition also has a jury that chooses the 10 best songs and ranks them in the same way.

Countries cannot vote for their own song.

— Niv Sadrolodabaee

Now that the performances have wrapped, we've got a little bit more voting time before everything closes and the winners are decided (Delta, pls).

Get your votes in. They cost 70 cents each time. You can vote ten times. You cannot vote for Australia.

Vote here.

— Alexandra Koster

It's the final song of the night — last year's winner, Austria, and the hometown legend!

Courtney Act says it's the Austrian Macarena, which bodes very well.

Cosmo is lying on the ground. He's wearing cool shiny shoes, which I just know our readers in Narrm are loving.

Then, it's the Austrian Macarena time. But it's bassy. And boppy. And coooooool.

There are lots of hot people wearing silver animal masks for some reason. Best not to question it.

It has the potential to be very earwormy, but I think it falls just slightly short. Doesn't quite permeate the soul, you know?

Still, a bop. Thanks Austria!

— Alexandra Koster

Romania now!

Her name is Alexandra and she also is a brunette with bangs, so obviously, we love her.

The song is called Choke Me, but she insists that it's about overcoming self-doubt. It is not sexy.

But as soon she hits the stage, we're like, babes, you're not fooling anyone. Because this is HOT.

There's thigh high leather boots. Killer smokey eyeliner. There's even a big light string for the metaphorical choking!

It's a very cool rocky rift. But because it's Eurovision, we also get a bit of Opera in there — because my girl Alex (I can call you Alex, right?) isn't just a rock chick, she's a talented rock chick.

10/10 Alexandras.

— The other brunette Alexandra with bangs

Alright, we're on the final three performances: Norway, Romania and Austria.

First up, Norway!

And, I don't know if you've heard me say this, but I always say the world needs more indie rock. Particularly in Eurovision. And particularly from a guy wearing leather overalls.

In all seriousness though, this one is a bit of Franz Ferdinand mixed with the drum riff of Seven Nation Army.

I'd listen to it in complete seriousness, not one ounce of irony present. It may even make its way onto my gym playlist.

Yayayayayaya, indeed.

— Alexandra Koster