Which Eurovision countries sing in their own language?
France and Italy: every song they have sent since 1999, when Eurovision dropped the rule that songs be in a national language, was in their own. Sweden has used its own once in 27 songs (3.7%), in 2025. The UK and Ireland score 100% too, because their own language is English. 13 of the 37 countries here use theirs in fewer than one song in five.
Source: English Wikipedia, each country’s Eurovision participation table, contests 1999–2026.
What stands out
- Spain (96.2%) and Portugal (95.7%) come closest to the four countries on 100%; Serbia is next, at 83.3%.
- After Sweden, the lowest are Belarus (6.2%) and Belgium (7.7%).
- The median country of the 37 sang 36% of its songs in its own language.
The numbers
| Rank | Country | Songs in its own language |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 100.0% |
| 1 | United Kingdom | 100.0% |
| 1 | Ireland | 100.0% |
| 1 | Italy | 100.0% |
| 5 | Spain | 96.2% |
| 6 | Portugal | 95.7% |
| 7 | Serbia | 83.3% |
| 8 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 71.4% |
| 9 | Croatia | 64.0% |
| 10 | Albania | 59.1% |
| 11 | Hungary | 53.8% |
| 12 | Slovenia | 52.0% |
| 13 | North Macedonia | 50.0% |
| 13 | Slovakia | 50.0% |
| 13 | Turkey | 50.0% |
| 16 | Ukraine | 47.6% |
| 17 | Bulgaria | 40.0% |
| 18 | Poland | 39.1% |
| 19 | Greece | 36.0% |
| 20 | Moldova | 30.0% |
| 21 | Finland | 29.2% |
| 22 | Lithuania | 28.0% |
| 23 | Switzerland | 25.0% |
| 24 | Georgia | 22.2% |
| 25 | Germany | 18.5% |
| 25 | Estonia | 18.5% |
| 27 | Austria | 18.2% |
| 27 | Romania | 18.2% |
| 29 | Iceland | 16.0% |
| 30 | Latvia | 15.4% |
| 31 | Czech Republic | 14.3% |
| 32 | Netherlands | 12.0% |
| 33 | Denmark | 11.5% |
| 33 | Norway | 11.5% |
| 35 | Belgium | 7.7% |
| 36 | Belarus | 6.2% |
| 37 | Sweden | 3.7% |
Share of the songs each country sent, 1999 to 2026.
Download the chart as an image
Data: English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): the language of each song in the “Participation overview” table of each “<country> in the Eurovision Song Contest” article, contests 1999 to 2026, read September 2026. A song counts as its country’s own language when that is one of the country’s official or recognised languages, so English counts for the UK and Ireland. Shares are of the songs each country sent: Italy stayed away until 2011. Countries not on this map (Malta, Cyprus, Israel, Australia and others) are left out. Played as puzzles in Daily Shade.