Billboard Music Awards Voting: How Fans Vote, Daily Limits and Closing Dates
Billboard Music Awards voting runs only through the channels the organiser opens for the season: a voting website and Twitter in 2017, TikTok as the primary platform in 2020. Under the published 2017 rules, each fan could cast up to 100 votes per day per Award on the voting website, plus 100 Tweet Votes per Award per day. Anyone with a valid Facebook or Twitter account was eligible regardless of location. Most winners are decided by Billboard chart performance instead.
Compiled by BuyContestVotesNow editorial desk / Checked
What the published rules actually allow
Start with the structural fact that separates this show from most of its neighbours on a fan-vote desk: the Billboard Music Awards are, first and foremost, a chart-derived ceremony. Billboard itself describes the honorees as selected by performance on its charts, and independent reporting states that winners are determined almost entirely by chart performance, covering streaming, sales, radio airplay and touring grosses tracked by Luminate. Fan participation exists, but it occupies a narrow, clearly marked space inside that machine.
The 2017 official rules are the fullest published picture of how the fan space works. They name two routes and attach a number to each: 100 per day per Award on the voting website, and an additional 100 Tweet Votes per Award per day through Twitter. Those figures matter because the rules tie counting to them directly. A submission that arrives through either route inside its allowance counts; one past the daily figure does not.
- The voting website route: up to 100 submissions per day per Award, then that Award locks until the next day.
- The Twitter route: a specific hashtag for the nominee, with a separate daily allowance of 100 Tweet Votes per Award.
- The counting rule: anything past the daily figure in either route does not register as a valid vote.
- The eligibility rule: a valid Facebook or Twitter account is the only requirement, with no location restriction stated in 2017.
Daily limits and what resets them
How often a fan may take part is a question the organiser answers with a daily figure rather than a lifetime one. The 2017 text says a fan may cast up to 100 per day per Award on the voting website, and once that figure is submitted for a particular Award, the Award becomes unavailable for further participation until the next day. The reset is therefore automatic and tied to the calendar day, not to anything the fan does.
The same edition set the Twitter side at an additional 100 per Award per day. The word additional is doing real work there: the two routes did not share one pool. The rules also state the consequence of overshooting plainly, so the arithmetic leaves no room for interpretation. A fan who wants the full published allowance uses both routes, inside each route's figure, once per day, and nothing in the text supports a way to carry unused allowance forward.
- The website counter treats a day as the unit: hit the cap for an Award and the route closes for that Award until the next day.
- The Twitter allowance sits alongside the website one, so the two routes were additive under the 2017 rules.
- Excess Tweet Votes are not counted as valid, which means pushing past the cap simply produces submissions the organiser discards.
Dates, deadlines and window length
Every published edition sets its own dates, and the closing times even differ in the hour. The 2017 rules describe a period beginning at 6 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on May 1, 2017 and ending at 6 p.m. PDT on May 21, 2017. A year later the schedule shifted: the 2018 rules opened the window at 9 a.m. PDT on May 14, 2018 and closed it at 5:30 p.m. PDT on May 20, 2018. Both editions measured the clock in Pacific Daylight Time, which is worth checking before planning around a deadline.
The 2020 edition broke the May pattern entirely. The organiser announced voting open on October 1, 2020, and TikTok's newsroom set the close at October 13. The condition that travels across all three editions is the same sentence in substance: submissions for each Award count only while the voting period is open. For the next show, today's honest position is that no dates are published yet; the organiser announces the window when the finalists are named, and that announcement is where the deadline first appears.
- 2017: the window ran from 6 p.m. PDT on May 1 to 6 p.m. PDT on May 21.
- 2018: the window ran from 9 a.m. PDT on May 14 to 5:30 p.m. PDT on May 20.
- 2020: the window opened October 1 and closed October 13, on TikTok.
Voting online: the named routes edition by edition
The online route changes with the edition, and the organiser names it rather than leaving fans to guess. The 2018 official FAQ is unusually specific: it tells fans to go to a dedicated page for the Chart Achievement Award and to a separate page for the Social Media Award. That split shows the pattern underneath, one named route per fan-voted award, rather than a single ballot covering the whole show.
In 2020 the route moved off the website altogether. The nominee announcement named TikTok as the primary voting platform, a choice the organiser tied to the platform's role in music discovery and as a staging ground for chart-topping hits. Fans could take part in three categories that year: the Billboard Chart Achievement Award, Top Social Artist and Top Collaboration. For 2026, the same logic applies in reverse: until the organiser names the platform, any page claiming to know the online route is ahead of the record.
- 2017: an official voting website on the awards' own domain, plus hashtag-based Twitter participation.
- 2018: a dedicated Chart Achievement page and a separate Social Media page, both named in the official FAQ.
- 2020: TikTok, named by the organiser as the primary voting platform for that year.
How to vote for the Billboard Music Awards, step by step
The steps below assemble the published mechanics into the order a fan actually follows them. They are written for an edition that has opened fan categories and named its routes; when an edition has not, the first step is the whole answer.
- The steps follow the published mechanics of the editions that named routes, in the order a fan meets them.
- A season that names no fan-voted categories stops the sequence at the first step, because there is nothing to submit into.
- Each edition's rules document remains the source of the figures, so check it before applying any number below.
What organisers can see and where the rules bite
A reader arriving with the worry of being flagged as fake should read the rules as they are written. The organiser's own text already describes its checks in operational terms: the voting website locks an Award once the daily figure is submitted, and Tweet Votes past the daily figure are not counted as valid votes. That is a counting layer, run on the platform side, and it works without any judgement about who a fan is. The disqualification risk in the published record is not mysterious; it is the stated cap and the stated window.
The same logic runs the other way. Because most honorees come from chart performance, a campaign of submissions in a fan category cannot move the rest of the show, and the rules give the organiser the final word on what counts. Anyone considering paid submissions should note what the published record supports: no third party controls the counter, no seller can extend a closed window, and the rules treat submissions outside their terms as invalid. The platform rules and the organiser's moderation decide the outcome; a fan-side trick changes nothing the counter can see.
- A stated daily cap means the organiser's counter, not the fan's intention, decides what registers.
- Submissions outside the open window do not count, under a condition restated in every published edition.
- The published rules reserve the organiser's right to discard votes not submitted as valid, and excess Tweet Votes are explicitly excluded from the valid count.
Where the organiser announces the next edition
Nothing in the record dates the 2026 window yet, and the honest answer to a deadline question for a season that has not announced one is that no date exists to report. What the past editions establish is where the announcement lands: the organiser publishes the routes and dates alongside the finalist list, and the rules document carries the fine print. Reading those two texts when they appear is faster than waiting for a reliable date anywhere else.
One reading habit saves the most trouble. The dates belong to their edition, and the closing hour shifts between editions, so a 2020 close on October 13 says nothing about a 2026 one. Check the year, check the time zone, which has been Pacific Daylight Time in every published window so far, and check which categories are open, since the 2020 edition limited fan participation to three.
- The nominee announcement, which in 2020 carried the opening date and the named platform.
- The official voting rules document, which in 2017 and 2018 carried the routes, the eligibility line and the daily figures.
- The official FAQ, which in 2018 named the per-award pages for Chart Achievement and Social Media.
| Edition | Named route | Daily allowance per award |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Official voting website plus hashtag voting on Twitter | 100 on the website plus 100 Tweet Votes per day |
| 2018 | Dedicated Chart Achievement page and Social Media page, per the official FAQ | not published in the cited FAQ |
| 2020 | TikTok, the organiser's primary voting platform | not published in the cited announcement |
| 2026 | not announced | not announced |
Do this in order
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Confirm the edition has fan categories
Most honorees are decided on chart performance, so first check the organiser's announcement for the named fan-voted categories. In 2020 those were the Chart Achievement Award, Top Social Artist and Top Collaboration. If the announcement names none, there is no fan route that season.
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Find the named route
Use only the channel the organiser names for that edition: the official voting website in 2017, dedicated per-award pages named in the 2018 FAQ, TikTok in 2020. A route the organiser has not named is not part of the published mechanics.
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Check your account qualifies
The 2017 rules required a valid Facebook account or Twitter account, with no location restriction. Whichever account the current rules name, have it ready before the window opens, because submissions count only while the period is open.
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Apply the daily figure per award
Under the 2017 text, the website allowance is 100 per day per Award, and the Twitter allowance is an additional 100 per Award per day. Once the website figure is reached for an Award, that Award locks until the next day, so spread participation across the window instead of the last hours.
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Stop when the window closes
Every published edition states that submissions count only while the voting period is open, and the closing times have varied, from 6 p.m. PDT to 5:30 p.m. PDT. Note the stated close in the organiser's time zone and treat it as final; nothing submitted after it registers.
Fast answers
How do you vote for the Billboard Music Awards?
You vote through whatever channel the organiser has opened for that season. In 2017 there were two published ways: an official voting website on the awards' own domain, and Twitter, where a fan included a specific hashtag for a nominee in a message posted from a personal account. In 2020 the organiser moved fan participation to TikTok and named it the primary platform. The organiser announces each edition's route when the finalists are announced, so the method for the next show is confirmed there first.
How many votes can you cast for the Billboard Music Awards?
Under the 2017 rules, up to 100 per day per Award on the voting website. Once a fan submitted 100 votes for a particular Award in a day, that Award became unavailable for further participation on the website until the next day. Twitter carried its own separate allowance: an additional 100 Tweet Votes per Award per day. Any Tweet Votes for an Award beyond that figure in a single day were not counted as valid votes.
Can you vote for the Billboard Music Awards?
Yes, but only in the categories the organiser designates as fan-voted, and only while the voting window is open. Most Billboard Music Awards honorees are selected on chart performance, so fan participation has historically covered a small set of categories. In 2020 fans could take part in three: the Billboard Chart Achievement Award, Top Social Artist and Top Collaboration. Earlier editions used the official website plus Twitter for the awards opened to the public.
How do you vote for the Billboard Music Awards online?
Online participation has always gone through a page or platform the organiser names. The 2017 rules pointed fans to an official voting website on the awards' own domain. The 2018 official FAQ named a dedicated page for the Chart Achievement Award and another for the Social Media Award. In 2020 the route was TikTok. For any future edition, the organiser's nominee announcement and its published rules are the two places where the online route is stated.
Who could take part in Billboard Music Awards voting?
Anyone with a valid Facebook account or Twitter account was eligible, regardless of location, under the 2017 official rules. That is a notably open eligibility line compared with shows that restrict participants by country. It also means the check the organiser runs is on the account, not on where the fan sits. Rules for later editions can differ, so the published rules for the season in question remain the deciding text.
When did the 2020 Billboard Music Awards voting open and close?
The 2020 window opened on October 1 and closed on October 13. The organiser's nominee announcement named TikTok as that year's primary voting platform when it opened the window, and TikTok's own newsroom told fans to show their support until October 13. Votes for each Award could only be submitted and counted while the voting period was open, a condition the rules have stated in every published edition.
References
- usacelebs.com. usacelebs.com/billboard-music-awards-2026-winners/.
- billboardmusicawards.com. billboardmusicawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-Billboard-Music-Awards-Official-Voting-Rules-1.pdf.
- billboardmusicawards.com. billboardmusicawards.com/2020/09/nominees-announced-for-the-2020-billboard-music-awards/.
- billboardmusicawards.com. billboardmusicawards.com/about/.
- billboardmusicawards.com. billboardmusicawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-Billboard-Music-Awards-Official-Voting-Rules-1.pdf.
No page here promises a result, no price appears anywhere, and no method for beating an organiser's checks is described. The published rules decide: a vote outside the stated window is not counted, and a submission over a stated daily cap is not counted as valid. Where a season has no fan-voted categories, there is nothing to take part in, and the honest answer is that chart performance decides the honorees.
Each organiser's own terms decide which votes are valid, and an organiser can void votes or disqualify an entry. ITV's Love Island terms limit each registered mobile number to one vote per voting event and rule out any method the terms do not state. America's Got Talent asks voters to register and accept its official voting rules, with a cap of ten votes per act, per voting method, per voting window. The American Music Awards decided each winner by the total of valid votes in the category.
Organisers write an ordinary voter down in numbers. The American Music Awards allowed up to 30 votes per award per day on each voting platform, the NASCAR All-Star Race fan vote allowed five a day per unique email address, and the iHeartRadio Music Awards allowed 50 a day per category. A crowd of separate voters stays inside limits like these and arrives day by day, with busier days when an organiser opens a boost. This describes how organisers count; it is not a way around a check.
We give no legal advice and cite no statute: the terms that bind a fan vote are the organiser's own, and they fix who may vote. Dancing with the Stars online voters must be at least 18 and in the United States, its territories or Canada; Love Island USA voting is open to US residents aged 18 or older, or with parental permission. We refuse member-only ballots such as the ACM Awards, categories an organiser decides itself, as MTV did with Best Video, and any vote for public office.
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The part of a request that is not delivered before the organiser's voting closes is refunded. A result, a disqualification and a voided vote are never refunded, because the organiser decides all three. Nor is a vote's worth inside the format covered: the MLB All-Star ballot did not carry Phase 1 totals into Phase 2, and at The Game Awards fan voting is one tenth of the vote that decides winners.