The Netherlands pulls out of Eurovision 2027 after all

A U-turn

The Netherlands will not compete in the 2027 Eurovision Song Contest. The Dutch public broadcaster NPO announced on Tuesday 27 October that it had decided to forgo taking part, only weeks after it had pledged that the country would return to the contest next year.

It means the Netherlands, one of the most successful countries in the contest's history, will miss a second year in a row. It also leaves the 2027 contest in Burgas, Bulgaria, without two of the five countries that stayed away from this year's final in Vienna: Ireland had already said it would not take part.

The contest will still be shown in the Netherlands. NPO said the broadcaster NOS would carry it with Dutch commentary, and that it would keep talking to the European Broadcasting Union, the EBU, which runs Eurovision, about the future of the contest.

Emma Saunders reported this first for BBC News. Checked against NPO press release: NPO drukt op pauzeknop Eurovisie Songfestival, geen Nederlandse deelname.

What NPO said

Jurre Bosman, NPO's director of media, said Israel's participation "elicits various reactions in society and causes discussion and division", as Emma Saunders reported for BBC News. NPO's statement acknowledged that some Dutch fans would be disappointed.

The NPO chair, Jet de Ranitz, explained the change of course. She said NPO had held talks with the Dutch public broadcasters about taking part, and at first had felt there was enough support to return, but had not been able to find a suitable format. NPO had therefore concluded that it was too early to take part in 2027, and that, given the sensitivities around the issues involved, it would take a step back for the time being.

The Eurovision Song Contest director, Martin Green, said organisers were "deeply sorry" that the Netherlands would not take part, but that they understood and respected the strength of feeling behind the decision. He said views on the contest differ widely both within and between countries, that organisers do not dismiss any of them, and that they believe the contest matters in a divided world as one of the few moments each year when people come together around music. He added that he looked forward to welcoming a Dutch entry back when the country felt the time was right.

How the Netherlands got here

In the Netherlands, several public broadcasters share the national channels under the NPO umbrella, and Eurovision had been run by one of them, Avrotros. Avrotros pulled the country out of the 2026 contest, and on 24 August it said it would stay out in 2027 as well, arguing that the competition could no longer be considered neutral while a participating country was still involved in a large-scale military conflict, as Paul Glynn reported for BBC News.

Avrotros pointed to the humanitarian suffering in Gaza and restrictions on press freedom, and said rule changes the EBU had made did not give it enough confidence that the contest's independent and neutral character had been restored. Its director general, Taco Zimmerman, said the contest had been created to bring people and countries together but had become a platform for division, and that stepping away from an event so close to the broadcaster's heart was painful.

That did not rule out a Dutch entry, because another public broadcaster could take over. On 23 September NPO stepped in, saying the Netherlands would return in 2027, with NOS covering the contest and an independent panel of experts choosing the Dutch act, as Steven McIntosh reported for BBC News. Bosman said then that it was important for a public broadcaster to remain part of the event at this moment in particular, and NPO said it had asked the EBU to make the contest's unifying character an important part of the show again.

Five weeks later, that plan has been dropped. The last Dutch entrant remains Claude, who represented the country in Basel in 2025.

The boycott and the rule changes

The row is over Israel, which has competed in Eurovision since 1973 and has won it four times. Last November, after a failed attempt to have Israel suspended, five broadcasters announced they would boycott the 2026 contest: the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Iceland and Slovenia, BBC News reported. Their reasons varied, but most cited the war in Gaza that followed the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel's culture minister, Miki Zohar, called a potential boycott shameful and hypocritical, and Israel strongly rejects the accusations made against it.

Voting has been part of the dispute. In 2025 Israel's Yuval Raphael won the public vote, and some broadcasters questioned whether official Israeli government social media accounts urging people to vote up to 20 times had skewed the result. The EBU said the vote had been independently checked and was valid. For 2026 it cut the number of votes each person could cast from 20 to ten. Israel's Noam Bettan still finished second in Vienna with Michelle, the second year running Israel had been runner-up.

In August the EBU changed its rules again. A country involved in an armed conflict, or in a sensitive geopolitical situation affecting its security, can no longer host the contest if it wins; an independent security assessment can be ordered, and another broadcaster would host instead, Mark Savage reported for BBC News. The minimum age for performers rises from 16 to 18 in 2027, and backing tracks may no longer include a recorded voice singing the main melody to support the live singer.

The hosting rule would also apply to Ukraine, which won in 2022 when the UK hosted the following year's contest in Liverpool on its behalf. Some in the contest have argued that no country at war should be allowed to compete at all, BBC News reported, but the EBU has stopped short of that, and the changes did not persuade Avrotros, Ireland or, in the end, NPO.

Who else is out, and who is in

Ireland's broadcaster RTÉ announced on 17 September that it would boycott the contest for a second year, saying Irish participation could not be justified given the loss of life and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as Lisa O'Carroll reported for The Guardian. BBC News reported that the head of the Spanish public broadcaster has spoken in favour of a boycott, and that the Czech public broadcaster has also withdrawn, citing spending cuts rather than politics.

Against that, the contest is growing in other directions. Canada will take part for the first time in 2027, the first new country since Australia joined in 2015, after its public broadcaster CBC became a member of the EBU. A spin-off, Eurovision Song Contest Asia, is due to be held in Bangkok in November.

The boycott has had a cost. Organisers said the 2026 final was watched by 130 million people around the world, down from 160 million in 2025, The Guardian reported.

Burgas 2027

The 2027 contest is in Bulgaria for the first time, after the singer Dara won in Vienna in May with Bangaranga, a dance track she described as pop music with folklore bones, inspired by the kukeri ritual in which costumed men with bells and masks roam through villages. It was Bulgaria's first win since joining in 2005.

The host city surprised many Bulgarians. Organisers chose Burgas, a Black Sea port of about 200,000 people, over the capital Sofia. The final will be held at Arena Burgas, a 15,000-capacity hall completed in 2023, on 15 May 2027, with semi-finals on 11 and 13 May, and fan events in the city centre and the seafront Sea Garden park, as Eden Maclachlan reported for The Guardian. Burgas is not the smallest place to host: Millstreet in Ireland did so in 1993 and Harrogate in 1982.

Even Dara said she was surprised by the choice, though she told The Guardian she trusted the Bulgarian national broadcaster BNT to produce a great show. Some people in Sofia were disappointed that the capital, with its bigger arena, missed out, while others were relieved. The mayor of Burgas, Dimitar Nikolov, said he was honoured, and the city, which hosted the finish of the opening stage of this year's Giro d'Italia cycle race, sees the contest as a chance to show off the Bulgarian coast. Its airport has said it is ready for the extra passengers.

Boycotts are not new

Eurovision has been pulled into politics many times since its first contest in Lugano in 1956. Austria stayed away from Madrid in 1969 because Spain was a dictatorship. Greece boycotted in 1975 over Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, and Turkey missed the next year. Armenia refused to compete in Azerbaijan in 2012, and Morocco's only entry came in 1980, a year Israel did not take part, BBC News and The Guardian have reported.

What is different now is the scale. William Lee Adams, who runs an independent Eurovision website, told The Guardian in May: "This is the biggest boycott that Eurovision has ever seen." Most of the boycotting broadcasters, BBC News noted, are broadly in line with their own governments' positions, though they say they made their decisions independently.

What happens next

Every broadcaster decides each year whether to enter the next contest, so the Dutch decision applies to 2027 only. NPO has said it will stay in talks with the EBU. The Netherlands has a long record in the contest: only Ireland and Sweden have won it more often, BBC News reported.

Dutch fans will still have a big pre-contest night at home. Eurovision in Concert, the preview show in Amsterdam where many of each year's acts perform before the contest, is listed for 3 April 2027 at AFAS Live. On 30 October StubHub had 18 listings for it from £90.48, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout. The live price is below, checked hourly, and you can set an alert to hear when it drops.

Tickets today

What StubHub lists now, checked hourly. Prices are listing prices; StubHub adds its booking fees at checkout.