The Finnish broadcaster YLE has opened the song search for next year’s Finnish national selection for Eurovision. You can send your song to Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) 2026 here:
https://ats.talentadore.com/apply/new-music-competition-umk-2026/mex1kx
The song search for UMK26 is open until August 24th 2025 22.59 CET. The finalists of the 15th edition of UMK will be announced in January 2026, and the final will take place at Nokia Arena in Tampere on February 28th 2026.
According to YLE, the entries for UMK26 will once again be selected by several juries. The main influence lies with the professional jury, chaired by Tapio Hakanen, Head of Music at YleX. In addition to the professional jury, the selection is influenced by five public juries, which consist of a diverse group of representatives from different fields. The public juries were added to UMK song selection last year, and this reform was a success.
”UMK’s impact on creating Finnish music phenomena has grown year by year. Last season’s successes included Erika Vikman’s ’Ich Komme’ with over 30 million streams, Nelli Matula’s ’Hitaammin hautaan’ – the biggest radio song of the year – and Goldielocks’breakthrough with the English-language song ’Made Of’. UMK has no genre restrictions, and we hope to receive as diverse a selection of songs as possible for our professional and public juries to review”, says professional jury chair Tapio Hakanen.
During the last years, UMK has been a huge success. Many of the competing songs have become big hits in Finland, and the tickets of UMK final have been sold out very quickly. The success of UMK has also reflected to Finland’s success in Eurovision. Since 2021 Finland has qualified for the Eurovision final every year and finished in Top 10 twice: In 2021 with Blind Channel’s ”Dark Side” (6th) and in 2023 with Käärijä‘s mega hit ”Cha Cha Cha” (2nd).
As we can remember, this year’s UMK was won by the one and only Erika Vikman with her song ”ICH KOMME”. Vikman carried the Finnish flag in Basel in May, finishing 11th in the Grand Final with 196 points:
