Madonna leads the field for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards with 11 nominations, positioning the pop veteran, who already holds 19 competitive Moon Person trophies, to extend her record haul when the ceremony airs next month.
Taylor Swift follows with nine nominations as she seeks to add to a collection that already numbers 30 VMAs, according to nominee lists published this week. Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter each earned seven nominations, while Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson each picked up five.
The nominations, announced Aug. 18, also mark the return of the Best Dance category for the first time in seven years, one of the more notable format changes to this year's show. Several artists, including GENER8ION, Yung Lean and Tucker Wetmore, received their first VMA nominations.
The 2026 ceremony airs live Sept. 27 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, broadcasting simultaneously on CBS, MTV and Paramount+ between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Eastern. Fan voting in competitive categories remains open through Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Madonna's strong nomination count comes during a year in which she has remained a visible live performer despite decades in the industry, including a surprise Times Square appearance in June and a joint set with Carpenter at Coachella earlier in 2026. Her presence atop this year's list, alongside artists decades her junior, underscores a nomination pool that spans multiple generations of pop audiences rather than a single dominant sound or scene.
No host had been announced for the ceremony as of nomination day, and MTV had not yet released a full list of performers. The network's VMA broadcast has in recent years leaned on a mix of legacy acts and current chart-toppers for its performance lineup, a pattern this year's nominee list, pairing a decades-established icon with pop's current top sellers, suggests will continue.
The VMAs have long billed themselves as a fan-driven alternative to the recording industry's other major honors, with winners chosen largely through public voting rather than an academy or committee. That format has periodically produced upsets that diverge from Grammy or Billboard chart outcomes, and this year's mix of a 1980s-era veteran, several 2020s breakout pop acts and a handful of first-time nominees sets up a ceremony without an obvious front-runner across every category.
