The 2026 Tiny Desk Contest is now officially open for entries! From now until Feb. 9 at 11:59 p.m. ET, you can submit your entry on the Tiny Desk Contest website. We’re so thrilled to be back searching for the next great undiscovered artist to play a Tiny Desk concert — and to help all of you independent artists create a community together.

First, let’s review the how-tos. Here’s what you need to do to submit:

Record a video of you (or you and your band — despite the name, we can fit a lot of people behind our Desk!) performing one original song behind a desk.
Upload your video to YouTube. Make sure it’s set to public.
Fill out and submit the entry form at npr.org/tinydeskcontest. It doesn’t hurt to also take this quick quiz to make sure you’re eligible to win this thing.

ENTER NOW

We have a fantastic crew of new and returning judges who are eager to discover new talent and crown this year’s winner. From the NPR side, joining long-time judges and Tiny Desk hosts Bobby Carter and Robin Hilton, is Anamaria Sayre. She’s a co-host of Alt.Latino and has produced Tiny Desk concerts for indie artists like Silvana Estrada and helped launch artists like Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso into stardom.

For artist judges, we’re thrilled to have the ever-creative rapper and singer Tierra Whack, lyricist extraordinaire singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee and 2025 Tiny Desk favorite Madison McFerrin. (We have to note that Madison also submitted to the Contest herself in 2017.)

And we have some friends from beloved music member stations joining us. Hailing from Nashville, we welcome Celia Gregory of WNXP to this year’s panel. You may know Celia as a regular guest on All Songs Considered. And from Austin, KUTX host Alex Marrero is joining us. (Alex has also performed a Tiny Desk concert as Brownout.) Jessica Linker, who is the founder of independent public relations agency Pitch Perfect PR where she has been championing new artists for two decades, is also on board.

The 2026 Tiny Desk Contest is presented by Capital One and supported by Rivian.

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If you’re entering to win, we support your dream! But each year there are so many talented artists who don’t win and still find what they’re looking for in the Contest: a creative challenge, a platform (we feature tons of artists on NPR Music’s social media, on air and on tour) or a supportive community of independent artists. We hope the Contest can help you on your musical journey this year.

Last year, we broke the record for most entries ever, and Bobby Carter repeatedly said that those entries were the strongest he’d seen yet. We’re up for the challenge of breaking that record in 2026, and we hope you are, too. We have a feeling that this year’s entrants are ready to take it to the next level — to show us something we’ve never seen before, whether that’s a new sound or a singular perspective.

Questions? Check out our FAQ or just reply to this email.

Happy music making!

From the Desk,
NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest team

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