The Grammys are changing the rules in 2027, here are the biggest updates artists should know

• The Recording Academy has announced new categories and several rule changes ahead of the 2027 Grammy Awards.

• Best New Artist eligibility has been expanded, while members can now vote in more categories through a new Ballot Plus option.

• The updates also include changes to album eligibility and greater recognition for songwriters and composers.

The Recording Academy has announced a set of updates to the Grammy Awards ahead of the 69th ceremony, which is scheduled to air on February 7, 2027.

The changes touch everything from how new artists qualify to how voters cast their ballots, and a few of them are significant enough to reshape who gets nominated and who gets recognised.

Here is everything that is changing:

This is the headline change. Previously, an artist could only be submitted for Best New Artist consideration a maximum of three times across their career. That limit has now been raised to four.

Why does it matter? Because under the old rules, some artists who have been building their careers steadily over several years were getting locked out of the category by the time they broke through big enough to be genuine contenders.

Billboard noted that likely frontrunners for the next cycle, including Ella Langley and Megan Moroney, may not have been eligible under the previous limit. The extra submission buys developing artists more runway.

The Grammys are expanding their category list, and the additions reflect where music is actually going.

Best Asian Pop Music Performance is the most significant new addition. It covers K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and other Asian pop formats performed meaningfully in Asian languages. Given how dominant K-pop has become globally, this has been a long time coming.

Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance splits what was previously a single R&B performance category into two. Going forward, solo R&B performances compete separately from collaborative ones. Best R&B Solo Performance is the renamed version of what existed before.

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance carves out a lane for classic, old-school pop that does not fit comfortably alongside contemporary pop sounds. Think standards, torch songs, that kind of thing.

Best Traditional Folk Album does the same for folk music, separating heritage folk recordings from the more contemporary folk and Americana sound. The existing Best Folk Album category becomes Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Best Latin Song rounds out the additions, recognising songwriters specifically, not performers, behind newly written Spanish-language Latin songs.

A new opt-in voting option called Ballot Plus allows Recording Academy members with expertise across multiple genres to vote in up to 15 categories, rather than being limited to the standard 10.

Members need to submit verified professional credits to qualify. Those who do not opt in simply stay on the existing ballot structure.

Albums now only need 66 percent new recordings to qualify, down from 75 percent, meaning more projects will be eligible without being disqualified on a technicality.

Songwriters and composers will now receive Grammy statuettes when their albums win genre categories, putting them on equal footing with producers and engineers who already received that recognition.

It is a small but meaningful acknowledgment of a group that has historically been overlooked in how the awards are physically distributed.

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