'Festival da Canção' 2025: RTP reveals the dates and details

After the winner of its 2024 edition gave Portugal a Top 10 finish at the Eurovision Song Contest in May, Festival da Canção will return in 2025.

Portuguese broadcaster RTP confirmed on Tuesday 5 November that the acclaimed national final will consist of two semi-finals (which will take place on 22 February and 1 March) and a final happening on Saturday 8 March. 

With a tradition of celebrating Portuguese music and discovering new talents, the country's pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest has long earned a great reputation at home and abroad for gathering together a unique blend of musical identities, generations and styles each year. 

Anyone tuning in knows by now that they can expect to find some of Portugal's top names performing alongside some of its most exciting new discoveries.

And our batch of 20 song composers for Festival da Canção 2025 has now been revealed!

Broadcaster RTP invited 14 composers directly, while 6 were selected through an open submission process.

The 14 composers invited by RTP are:

A Cantadeira
Beato
Bluay
Bombazine
Emmy Curl
EU.CLIDES,
Fernando Daniel
Jéssica Pina
Luca Argel
Marco Rodrigues
Margarida
Campelo
Os Napa
Peculiar
Tiago Sampaio

The 6 composers selected out of the 633 submissions received are:

Capital da Bulgária
Diana Vilarinho
Henka
Inês Marques Lucas
JOSH
Xico Gaiato

While many of these composers will most likely also be performing their songs, the lineup of the 20 artists taking to the stage at Festival da Canção will not be revealed until January 2025. 

The winner of Festival da Canção 2024 was the song Grito, performed by iolanda. At the 68th Eurovision Song Contest, the song took Portugal to the Grand Final, and earned a 10th-place finish with 152 points.

Before we find out what song that Portugal picks for Basel, we can already look forward to seeing the country participate at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024.

In Madrid, Portugal will be represented by the artist Victoria Nicole, performing her self-penned song Esperança.

The show will be coming to us live at 18:00 CET on Saturday 16 November. Here's how you can watch, and here's how you can vote!

You can listen to all 37 songs of Eurovision 2024 via your favourite streaming service or watch the music videos on our YouTube channel.

Don't forget to download our app (for iOS / Android), sign up to the official Eurovision Song Contest newsletter, and subscribe to the official podcast!