Portugal: The last five qualify for Festival da Canção 2026 Final

Semi-final 2 of Portugal's Festival da Canção 2026 has just concluded and we now know who the remaining five acts are advancing to the Final.

Broadcast live from Valentim de Carvalho studios in Lisbon, eight acts took the stage hoping to convince both the public at home and the jury that they should be coming back on on next Saturday to perform at the Festival da Canção 2026 Final.

The first four acts to advance were determined by a 50/50 split between public and jury voting. The four to not advance went to a second round of voting, with one more act advancing determined by via 100% public vote.

Festival da Canção 2026

Festival da Canção 2026 features three live shows::

• Semi-final 1: 21 February 2026
• Semi-final 2: 28 February 2026
• Final: 7 March 2026

Both Semi-finals had eight acts, with five advancing to the Final from each one. Four acts were selected by a 50/50 split between jury and public votes, with the last one selected via 100% public vote from the remaining songs.

The Final will see 10 acts looking to receive the Festival da Canção victory. The winner will be decided by a 50/50 split between regional juries and public vote.

The winner will take the Eurovision 2026 stage if they have not chosen to opt out of participating. If the winner chooses not to head to Eurovision 2026, the broadcaster will select an act to travel to Vienna instead.

Portugal in Eurovision

Portugal has participated in the contest 56 times since 1964. It was a very bad start, as they managed to get zero points in their debut year.

Before Eurovision 2017, they had never won the contest, and had never made the top 5. In fact, Portugal held the record for most appearances in the contest without a win!

But that changed in 2017, when Salvador Sobral won with "Amar Pelos Dois."

Since the introduction of the Semi-finals in 2004, Portugal has only qualified for the Grand Final 10 out of 19 times.