Portugal is another one in the 2023 family, who confirms its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest that will take place in May 2023, in the United Kingdom. The national selection – Festival da Canção 2023 – will happen, according to the FdC press release, in the first trimester of the year, and it will have 20 songs competing.

Sixteen songs will be presented by the authors that RTP invites directly (and whose names will be known later) and the remaining four, will come from the open submission of songs. From today until the 21st of October, RTP is receiving applications to participate in the Festival da Canção 2023.

Some informations regarding song submission
Reception of original and unreleased songs is open from today (September 2nd) until October 21st. All citizens of Portuguese nationality or resident in the country can compete for these 4 places, including Portuguese living outside Portugal, as well as citizens of other nationalities residing in Portugal. The reception and choice of these four songs will be carried out through the provision of RTP. These models must be made available by sending an audio file directly to the email festivaldacancao@rtp.pt and accompanied by various data (specified in the regulation). The regulation of the next edition of the Festival da Canção can be consulted here.

Portugal participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with “Saudade, saudade” performed by Maro. RTP organised the national final Festival da Canção 2022 in order to select the Portuguese entry for the 2022 contest. After two semi-finals and a final which took place in March 2022, “Saudade, saudade” performed by Maro emerged as the winner after achieving the highest score following the combination of votes from seven regional juries and a public televote.

Portugal was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2022. In the final, Portugal performed in position 3 and placed ninth out of the 25 participating countries with 207 points.

Also – don’t forget and take a look at the 2022 interviews below – our Joe was there on site: