Israel Will Select Its Eurovision 2026 Representative on January 20

Israel will select its Eurovision 2026 artist via “The Rising Star For Eurovision 2026” (“Hakohav Haba Shel Israel La’Eurovision 2026”).
Israeli national broadcaster Kan collaborates with the commercial channel Keshet 12 for the 9th year on the Eurovision project.

Currently, 13 artists remain in the race to represent Israel in Eurovision 2026:

Based on Keshet 12, the grand final of “The Rising Star For Eurovision 2026″ will be held on Tuesday, January 20th, 2026.
4 artists will qualify for the grand final. The format will be as follows:

In the first round, 4 artists will compete in 2 battles. The winner of each battle will be determined by online live voting of the public and the jury panel.
The winner of each battle will get a direct ticket to the super-final.
The public will have the right to choose the 3rd super-finalists out of the 2 artists who will lose in the battle.
In the second round, the three super-finalists will each perform an additional song. The winner will be determined by a weighted vote from the studio jury, a secondary jury, and the public

However, the song will be selected internally. Kan has already opened the submission window for the internal selection:

View this post on Instagram

Israel’s Song Selection For Eurovision 2026 – Known Detals

The submission window opened on December 21st, 2025, and will close on January 26th, 2026.
The song writers must hold Israeli citizenship. However, one of the composers/producers can be foreign.
The song must feature at least 2 sentences in Hebrew.
Song writers whose song had been selected for Eurovision for 2 years in a row, can’t submit a song.
Songwriters who is in charge of songs representing other countries in Eurovision 2026, will be banned.
The selection promotes fair competition, and therefore encourages songwriters to submit their songs performed by anonymous performers (and even using AI tools). In particular, the performer can’t be one of the songwriters.
Each songwriter/composer can submit up to 2 different songs.
Submissions will be made online via Kan’s website
Kan has the right to directly approach songwriters to submit songs.
Once the submission window closes, a preliminary committee will shortlist the songs. The committee will feature Kan‘s representatives, musicians, TV personalities, and more. They will shortlist up to 40 songs.
The main committee will then examine the shortlisted songs. This committee will be based on representatives of Kan, Keshet 12, the public and music industry experts.
The main committee can pick a handful of songs to be recorded by the Israeli artist for Eurovision 2026, and get a final decision based on them.
Kan will reveal the Israeli song for Eurovision 2026 at the beginning of March 2026.
The full regulations can be found here