Sweden first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 but it would take them until 1974 to win the competition when ABBA famously took the trophy with the song Waterloo, which became a global hit and an all-time Eurovision classic. While Sweden has finished last on 2 occasions, in 1963 and 1977, over the past decade the country has come to dominate the Contest.

Since the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals were introduced in 2004, Sweden has only once failed to qualify for the Grand Final. In 2010, Anna Bergendahl finished 11th in the semi-final and narrowly missed out on a place in the Grand Final with her song This Is My Life. Since then Sweden has only once been out of the top 5, in 2013, when the contest was hosted in the Swedish city of Malmö.

The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the most popular television programmes of the year in Sweden.