Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest

Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 62 times since making its debut in 1958, missing only three contests since then (1964, 1970 and 1976). Since 1959, the Swedish entry has been chosen through an annual televised competition, known since 1967 as Melodifestivalen. At the contest, Sweden was one of the first five countries to adopt televoting. Sweden has hosted the contest seven times: three times in Stockholm, three times in Malmö and once in Gothenburg.

Sweden, along with, is the most successful country in the Eurovision Song Contest, with a total of seven victories. Sweden also has the most top five results of the 21st century, with 13; in total, Sweden has achieved 26 top five results in the contest. After finishing second with Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson in, Sweden went on to achieve its seven victories with ABBA , Herreys , Carola , Charlotte Nilsson , Loreen ( and ) and Måns Zelmerlöw.

Contest history


Sweden's first entrant in the contest was Alice Babs in, who was placed fourth. This remained the country's best result until, when Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson were second.

Sweden's first Eurovision victory was in with the song "Waterloo", performed by ABBA. Thanks to their victory in Brighton, ABBA went on to gain worldwide success and become one of the best-selling pop groups of all time. In the 1980s, Sweden achieved three successive top three results. After Carola finished third in, the Herreys gave Sweden its second victory in with "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley". Kikki Danielsson then finished third in. Carola returned to the contest in, eventually giving Sweden its third win with "Fångad av en stormvind", defeating in a tie-break. Charlotte Nilsson gave the country a second win of the decade in, with "Take Me to Your Heaven". The 1990s also saw two third-place results, for Jan Johansen in and One More Time in. In the 2000s, the best Swedish result was fifth place, which it achieved four times, with Friends in, Fame in , Lena Philipsson in and Carola, who in , became the only Swedish performer to achieve three top five results. Together with Croatia and Malta, Sweden was one of only three countries to have never been relegated under the pre-2004 rules of the contest.

With the exception of 2006, Sweden endured a poor run of results between and, placing no higher than 18th. The nadir came in, when Anna Bergendahl became the first Swedish entrant to fail to qualify for the final, finishing 11th in the semi-final, only five points from qualification (in , Charlotte Perrelli finished 12th in the semi-final but qualified through the back-up jury selection). Since then, the country has been very successful, finishing in the top ten in all subsequent editions except two (14th place in and ). This includes a fifth victory courtesy of Loreen's "Euphoria" in, a sixth victory courtesy of Måns Zelmerlöw's "Heroes" in , and a seventh victory courtesy of Loreen's "Tattoo" in. With her 2023 win, Loreen also became the second performer as well as the first female artist to win the contest more than once. Additional top-five placements during this period are third places in and, a fourth place in , and fifth places in ,  and.

Melodifestivalen
Melodifestivalen is an annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR). It has chosen the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest since 1959. It is one of Sweden's most popular television shows, and it has been estimated that more than four million Swedes watch the show annually. All of Sweden's entries for Eurovision have been selected through Melodifestivalen, with the exception of its first entry in 1958, which was internally selected by SR.

Commentators and spokespersons
Over the years SVT commentary has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Jacob Dahlin, Ulf Elfving, Harald Treutiger, Pekka Heino, Kristian Luuk and Fredrik Belfrage. Since  (with the exceptions of 2013 and 2016), Edward af Sillén provided the SVT commentary alongside various dual commentators.