MAMA 2026 Nominations by the Numbers

The scoring rules differ by category. Artist of the Year and the artist awards weigh a jury at 40%, streaming and downloads at 30% (15% Korea plus 15% global) and physical album sales at 30%. Song of the Year and the genre awards are 50% jury and 50% streaming and downloads. Album of the Year is 40% jury and 60% physical sales, counting only albums that sold at least 1 million copies. Best Music Video and Best Choreography are decided entirely by the jury, and Best Song Top 10, whose ten songs are the Song of the Year nominees, is decided entirely by streaming and downloads, split evenly between Korea and abroad.¹ The weights are as Soompi reports them from the announcement; the organiser's own site renders by script and couldn't be read here.¹

The 2026 MAMA Awards take place in Osaka on November 20 and 21. Music had to be released between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026 to be eligible. Soompi's list names 22 categories; Song of the Year has no names of its own because its nominees will be the Best Song Top 10, and the scoring rules add Fans' Choice of the Year.¹ For how past shows have gone, see DabPop's archive of every MAMA daesang winner.

Every nominee in the artist categories is automatically an Artist of the Year nominee. The 36 are the 10 Best New Artist nominees, 5 Best Male Artist, 5 Best Female Artist, 8 Best Male Group and 8 Best Female Group (a count DabPop made from Soompi's lists). The groups competing for Best Male Group are ATEEZ, BIGBANG, BTS, CORTIS, ENHYPEN, NCT WISH, Stray Kids and TXT; for Best Female Group they are aespa, BABYMONSTER, BLACKPINK, Hearts2Hearts, ILLIT, IVE, LE SSERAFIM and NMIXX.¹

Only albums that sold more than 1 million copies are eligible, and 18 are nominated: &TEAM's Mark on Me, aespa's LEMONADE, ALPHA DRIVE ONE's EUPHORIA, ATEEZ's GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5, BLACKPINK's DEADLINE, BOYNEXTDOOR's The Action, BTS's ARIRANG, CORTIS's GREENGREEN, ENHYPEN's THE SIN : VANISH, EXO's REVERXE, IVE's REVIVE+, NCT DREAM's Beat It Up, NCT WISH's Ode to Love, PLAVE's Caligo Pt.2, RIIZE's II, Stray Kids' THIS & THAT, TWS's NO TRAGEDY and TXT's 7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns.¹ For first-half 2026 copies on Circle Chart, see Best-Selling Albums in Korea: First Half of 2026.

Counting each act's entries across the 18 categories with their own nominee lists (everything except Artist of the Year, which follows from the artist categories, and the two Fans' Choice lists), six acts are named in four categories: ATEEZ, BTS, CORTIS, aespa, ILLIT and IVE. Hwasa, Yena, BIGBANG, Stray Kids and LE SSERAFIM are named in three. This is a count of list entries by DabPop: solo members and groups are counted separately (Taeyang is not counted with BIGBANG), a collaboration counts for each named act once per category, and a count says nothing about who will win.¹

The Fans' Choice Male and Fans' Choice Female lists each name 50 acts. The 20 acts picked from the first-round pre-vote for each category go through to a second round, weighted 90% Mnet Plus votes and 10% X votes. First-round voting ended October 22 (11:59 p.m. KST).¹ Soompi gives the second round's end as November 18, while the organiser's own notice, used in DabPop's vote guide, gives November 8, so check the vote guide for the dates the organisers published.