The European Broadcasting Union has published an updated rulebook for the Eurovision Song Contest 2027, and three changes have been made to the competition. Performers must now be adults. Backing tracks will be more tightly policed. And for the first time, the rules spell out exactly when a war or security crisis can cost a winning country its rights to host the following competition.

The EBU folded these changes into the pubic summary of rules now live on eurovision.com, building on the framework broadly agreed by member broadcasters at the union’s general assembly in Prague in late June. Bulgaria earned the right to host next year’s contest after DARA won in Vienna in May with “Bangaranga”. It’s the country’s first time hosting, and its broadcaster, BNT, is still working out where.

Start with age. From 2027, every artist on stage must be 18 on the day of their first rehearsal, up from 16, a threshold Eurovision had held since 1990. That earlier limit followed a run of very young winners and contestants in the late 1980s: Belgium’s Sandra Kim won the contest outright in 1986 at just 13, while the 1989 edition featured France’s 11-year-old Nathalie Paque and Israel’s 12-year-old Gili Natanel. Even after the floor moved to 16, teenagers kept landing near the top. Bulgaria’s Kristian Kostov finished runner-up at 17 in 2017, and Cyprus sent 17-year-old Silia Kapsis in 2024. The EBU originally wanted the higher age limit in place for Vienna 2026, but broadcasters asked for a year’s delay because national selection processes were already underway.

Eurovision allowed pre-recorded backing vocals on a trial basis in 2021 and made the practice permanent from 2022. The rule that governed Vienna 2026 said backing tracks and pre-recorded elements could not replace or unduly assist a singer’s live performance. The 2027 version adds a specific condition that the lead vocal has to remain the only element carrying the song’s main melody line. This comes after criticism in recent years that several delegations were using pre-recorded backing vocals to cover their artist’s live vocals. This update was already enforced to some degree in Vienna, with several delegations caught out when their initial submissions to the EBU were rejected for overusing backing vocals.

The most significant change concerns hosting rights, and it grew directly out of the fight over Israel’s place in the contest. At their General Assembly in Geneva last December, EBU members voted not to expel Israeli broadcaster KAN, despite pressure from various nations, including the six that went on to boycott the Vienna contest. The EBU has, since that vote, floated various ideas around to try and win over support from more member states; this latest rule change appears to be an attempt at a compromise whereby they will allow Israel to compete but will not allow them to host the competition in the event of them winning.

This idea has now been codified as a general policy rather than one targeting a specific country. Under the new rule, any broadcaster whose country is caught up in an armed conflict, a sensitive geopolitical situation, or anything else that materially threatens the security or stability of its immediate region loses the automatic right to host if its entry wins. The EBU defines that immediate region as the country itself, or neighbouring territory where military operations, attacks or airspace restrictions have a direct bearing on the safety of staging the show.

This rule change will, of course, also affect Ukraine. The rule states that whichever broadcaster inherits the hosting rights will take on the full rights and obligations of Host Broadcaster, suggesting that we will not see a repeat of 2023, whereby a country hosted on behalf of another country, in that case the United Kingdom hosting on behalf of Ukraine.

The union can still let a broadcaster host anyway, at its own discretion and after consulting the Reference Group, if it’s satisfied that safety and delivery can reasonably be guaranteed, a judgment it can support by commissioning an independent security analysis. The EBU can make that call at almost any point, including before the Grand Final or immediately after a winner is announced, and it must inform the member broadcaster of its decision and the reasons for it at the earliest opportunity. This decision has no effect on the member’s participation in future events, only on hosting rights.

None of that touches Bulgaria, whose security situation isn’t in dispute. What remains unsettled is which Bulgarian city gets to host, and that call has taken far longer than BNT originally planned.

Four cities entered the race, which BNT later shortened to just two: the Black Sea resort city of Burgas and the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. The broadcaster told reporters a winner would be named by the end of July. That deadline has passed, and so has a revised date in early August, and another one after that. BNT has publicly said only that its international evaluation working group has reached the final stage of its assessment and needs more time, without offering a fixed date.

Behind these public statements, however, there appears to be a bit of a standoff between BNT and the EBU, one that has driven most of the delay. Bulgarian media reports that BNT director general, Milena Milotinova, favours Sofia on practical grounds, arguing that relocating hundreds of technical staff and broadcast equipment to Burgas for six to eight weeks would disrupt the network’s regular programming. Meanwhile, the EBU and the Bulgarian government are believed to be favouring Burgas. BNT has officially denied any disagreements with the government over the choice of host city.

While certainly still in the balance, most evidence seems to be edging towards Burgas being confirmed as the host city of the Eurovision Song Contest 2027.

BNT now says it will confirm both the host city and the contest dates on Thursday, 13 August.