The 69th Annual Grammy Awards will take place on Sunday 7 February 2027 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, the Recording Academy has confirmed. Nominations had not been announced as of 27 October 2026. They are scheduled to be announced on Monday 16 November 2026. No nominees are named in this article, because none had been announced when it was written. Any list of nominees circulating before 16 November is speculation, not an official announcement.
This is a CONFIRMED set of dates, taken from the Academy’s own announcement of 12 May 2026. The rest of this explainer sets out, in plain English, how a recording gets from release to a Grammy nomination and then to a win, what the eligibility window means, what is new for 2027, and how a viewer can watch. It does not predict winners. The Academy’s process is a peer vote by working music professionals, not a public fan vote, and understanding that distinction explains much of what follows.
Grammy Awards 2027: date, venue and how to watch
The ceremony will air live from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday 7 February 2027, simulcast across ABC, Disney+ and Hulu, according to the Recording Academy and ABC. The Academy presents this as a historic shift: the 2027 ceremony will be the first to air on ABC since 1972, ending more than 50 years on CBS, and the first to be simulcast in this way. The move follows a ten-year deal between the Recording Academy and The Walt Disney Company, reported when the deal was signed in October 2024. The Academy’s chief executive, Harvey Mason Jr., described it in the May 2026 announcement as “a new home and a bold new chapter for the Grammy Awards”.
No host had been named in the Academy’s May 2026 announcement, and no host is named here. Any name attached to the 2027 show before an official announcement should be treated as reported, not confirmed. The same caution applies to performers.
The 2027 Grammy timeline: every key date
The Academy published a full list of key dates for the 2027 season in its May 2026 announcement. The table below reproduces those dates exactly. Note that first-round voting had already taken place, from 12 to 22 October 2026, before this article was written — which is why nominations can be announced on 16 November — while final-round voting was still to come.
| Stage | Date |
|---|---|
| Product eligibility period | 31 August 2025 – 28 August 2026 |
| Media company registration period | 25 June – 14 August 2026 |
| Online entry period | 7 July – 21 August 2026 |
| First-round voting | 12 – 22 October 2026 |
| Nominees announced | Monday 16 November 2026 |
| Final-round voting | 10 December 2026 – 7 January 2027 |
| 69th Grammy Awards ceremony | Sunday 7 February 2027 |
Reporting around the nominations announcement has described it as beginning at 4:45 a.m. Pacific Time / 7:45 a.m. Eastern Time, with the full list available online immediately afterwards, and with past winners and nominees helping to reveal the names. That timing is REPORTED, not stated in the Academy’s May announcement verified here, and the participating artists had not been announced at the time of that reporting. Readers should confirm the time on grammy.com on the day. What is confirmed is the date itself: Monday 16 November 2026.
Eligibility: which recordings can be considered
Only recordings released within the eligibility period can be considered for the 2027 Grammys. That period runs from 31 August 2025 to 28 August 2026. A recording released before 31 August 2025 belongs to an earlier awards year, and a recording released after 28 August 2026 belongs to the following year’s awards. The window is therefore slightly shorter than a calendar year, and its end date in late August — rather than at the end of December — is the single most common source of confusion about why a well-known recent release may not appear in a given year’s nominations.
Eligibility is necessary but not sufficient. A recording must also be entered. The Academy’s process starts with entries, not with an automatic review of every release. Recording Academy members and registered media companies submit recordings, music videos and other eligible works during the online entry period, which for 2027 ran from 7 July to 21 August 2026. A popular work can therefore be absent from the nominations for a simple procedural reason: it was not entered, or it did not meet the rules for the category in which it was entered. Entry is voluntary, and an artist or label may choose not to submit a work at all.
In October 2026, reporting described the group BTS as having decided not to submit songs or albums for consideration at the 2027 Grammys. That decision is REPORTED. It illustrates the entry principle: without an entry, there can be no nomination, however well known the artist.
Entry to winner, step by step
The Academy describes its process in five stages: entries, screening, first-round voting, nominations, and final-round voting, with ballots tabulated by an independent accounting firm. Each stage does a different job, and confusing them is the most common source of misunderstanding about the Grammys.
1. Entry. Members and registered media companies enter eligible works online, in the categories they consider appropriate. The Academy’s membership guide states that around 20,000 recordings are entered in a typical year. Entry alone means nothing more than that a work is in the system.
2. Screening. Academy staff check that each entry qualifies, and more than 300 experts across genres check that every recording has landed in the right category. The Academy is explicit that screening is not a judgement of quality: the experts are sorting entries, not ranking them, so that everything competes where it belongs. An entry can be moved to a different category, or ruled ineligible, at this stage. Screening decisions are governed by the Academy’s published Rules and Guidelines for the awards year, which can change from cycle to cycle.
3. First-round voting. Voting Members choose the nominees, voting only in their areas of expertise. Every voter weighs in on the six General Field categories. Beyond those, the standard ballot allows up to ten further categories across as many as three genre fields; the opt-in Ballot Plus allows up to fifteen categories from any fields, subject to verified credits. In craft and other specialised categories, final nominations are instead determined by national nominating committees of Voting Members, so the route to a nomination can differ by category.
4. Nominations. Ballots are counted by an independent accounting firm — Deloitte, in the Academy’s published process — and five nominees are named in most categories. The number can vary where the Academy’s rules set a different number for a category, for example where entry numbers fall below a threshold. Appearance on a first-round ballot is not a nomination; only the announced list counts.
5. Final-round voting and the winners. After nominations are announced, Voting Members vote again, on the same ballot structure, to choose the winners. Ballots are again tabulated by the independent firm. The recording with the most votes in a category wins; ties are possible, in which case the tied nominees are considered winners. Results are not known until they are announced at the Premiere Ceremony and the telecast, delivered in sealed envelopes. Winners receive a Grammy Award statuette; all nominees receive a nominee medallion and certificate.
Who votes, and who does not
Grammy nominees and winners are selected by the Recording Academy’s Voting Membership of working music creators: performers, songwriters, producers, engineers and other professionals with qualifying credits. It is not a public vote, and fans cannot vote for the winners. The peer principle is deliberate: the Academy presents the Grammys as awards given by music professionals to music professionals, with voters directed to the fields in which they have expertise. That structure also explains the most persistent criticism of the Grammys: that the outcome reflects the judgement and composition of the Voting Membership, which may differ from commercial success or public popularity.
What is new for 2027: five categories and rule changes
The 2027 awards expand to 100 categories, with five new awards announced by the Academy in June 2026: Best Asian Pop Music Performance; Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance; Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance; Best Traditional Folk Album; and Best Latin Song. Two existing categories were renamed: Best R&B Performance becomes Best R&B Solo Performance, and Best Folk Album becomes Best Contemporary Folk Album.
The Best Asian Pop Music Performance category has been widely misdescribed, so its definition matters. It covers qualifying contemporary pop associated with Asian markets, including K-pop, J-pop and C-pop, and requires meaningful use of an Asian language; incidental words do not meet the requirement, and entirely English-language recordings are not eligible in this category, although they can qualify elsewhere. Musical style and language, rather than a performer’s ethnicity or nationality, are determinative: the category is about the recording, not the artist’s identity.
Other 2027 changes include the Ballot Plus option, an increase in the maximum number of times an artist can be submitted for Best New Artist from three to four, a lower threshold for new recordings on an eligible album (from 75 per cent to 66 per cent), and Grammy statuettes and certificates for songwriters and composers of new material on winning albums in most genre album categories.
The four General Field awards, explained
Four awards are treated as the Grammys’ headline prizes. Record of the Year honours the overall performance and production of a single track. Song of the Year honours the songwriting of a song, and is awarded to the songwriter or songwriters. Album of the Year honours an entire album. Best New Artist recognises an emerging artist who has made a breakthrough during the eligibility period. The same recording can be recognised in more than one General Field category for different reasons, and a win in one does not imply a win in another. Beyond the General Field, awards are organised into genre fields including pop, rap, R&B, rock, country, Latin, dance and electronic, jazz, classical, gospel, global music and folk, plus craft categories. Not every category is presented during the main telecast: many are presented at the Premiere Ceremony earlier the same day.
What happens next
The next confirmed milestone is the nominations announcement on Monday 16 November 2026. This article will be updated on the same URL with the official list. Final-round voting runs from 10 December 2026 to 7 January 2027, and the winners will be revealed at the ceremony on 7 February 2027. Prediction lists and social-media claims about nominees are not official, and this article does not repeat them.
Frequently asked questions
When are the Grammy Awards 2027?
Sunday 7 February 2027, live from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, simulcast on ABC, Disney+ and Hulu, according to the Recording Academy.
When are the 2027 Grammy nominations announced?
Monday 16 November 2026. Nominations had not been announced as of 27 October 2026, and no nominees are named in this article.
What music is eligible for the 2027 Grammys?
Recordings released between 31 August 2025 and 28 August 2026, that were entered during the online entry period and passed screening. A release outside that window, or one that was not entered, cannot be nominated for the 2027 awards.
How are Grammy winners chosen?
By the Recording Academy’s Voting Membership of working music professionals, in two rounds of voting — first to choose nominees, then to choose winners — with ballots tabulated by an independent accounting firm. It is not a public fan vote. Screening checks eligibility and category placement only; it does not judge artistic quality.
Updated: 28 October 2026. This explainer will be updated on the same URL when the nominations are announced on 16 November 2026. Confirm ceremony and nominations details on grammy.com.
Sources
- Recording Academy / GRAMMY.com, “The GRAMMY Awards Set to Take Place Sunday, Feb. 7, 2027, and Will Be Exclusively Simulcast on ABC, Disney+ and Hulu for the First Time Ever”, 12 May 2026 — https://www.grammy.com/news/2027-grammys-show-air-date-nominations-announced/
- Recording Academy, “GRAMMY Awards Voting Process” — https://customerservice.grammy.com/support/solutions/articles/63000265500-grammy-awards-voting-process
- ABC, “The GRAMMY Awards 2027 Will Air on ABC and Stream on Disney+ & Hulu Live Sunday, Feb. 7, 2027” — https://abc.com/news/f055deb9-3d58-4ecf-bdf2-70536dff9549/category/1138628
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