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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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The deadline for nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize 2026 is on January 31, kicking off a process likely to include lobbying, headlines and speculation before the award is given at the end of the year.
Secrecy surrounds the process, with nominations not revealed until 50 years after the award is given, although lawmakers and academics often announce their choices publicly to raise awareness.
Newsweek has contacted the Nobel Committee for comment.
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Why It Matters
The 2025 award was marked by headlines generated by President Donald Trump who boasted of his role in ending conflicts, from Africa to the Middle East. The prize was eventually awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, prompting a White House response that the U.S. president had been snubbed. The 2026 prize is likely to spark just as much speculation and political debate in the months leading up to the December 10 ceremony.
What To Know
The online form for nominating candidates opened in mid-October, with the deadline for submission on 31 January, according to the Nobel Peace Prize website.
This starts an eight-month process in which nominations are sorted and checked for validity before being handed to the five-member Nobel Committee in mid-February, which then prepares a shortlist for further consideration.
The will of the award's founder, Alfred Nobel, says the prize is for the person or group "who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations."
A nomination can be only submitted by someone who meets the nomination criteria. These include current heads of state, lawmakers, university professors in relevant fields, members of the International Court of Justice, as well as previous laureates.
The Committee meets regularly from mid-February until September to discuss and narrow the field of candidates, with reports on them submitted by the Committee's permanent advisers and other Norwegian or international experts.
The Committee might reconsider candidates not initially shortlisted as long as there is a valid nomination, and by summer the shortlist is down to a few candidates, the Nobel Peace Prize committee said. Between mid-August and late September, the Committee makes its decision.
In 2025, the Norwegian Nobel Institute registered 338 candidates, of which 244 were individuals and 94 were organizations. The highest number ever of 376 candidates was received in 2016.
Neither the names of nominators nor of nominees are revealed for 50 years although there can be public announcements of nominations.
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Asle Toje, deputy leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Reuters in September that lobbying for the prize can be counterproductive, as "it is hard enough as it is to reach an agreement among ourselves, without having more people trying to influence us."
As far as the 2026 prize is concerned, European Parliament MEP Matjaz Nemec has nominated U.N. Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, and Gaza-based doctors for this year's prize, Middle East Monitor reported.
BetOnline.ag offered Nobel Peace Prize odds throughout 2025 and its odds for the 2026 prize shared with Newsweek on December 18, puts Trump at the top, at 5/1. Were he to win, he would be the fifth U.S. president, and the first since Barack Obama, to do so. The next favorites are Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms at 6/1 and Medecins Sans Frontiers at 8/1.
The next individual is Iranian human rights activist, Narges Mohammadi 9/1, followed by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine in the Near East) 10/1, and Yulia Navalnaya at 10/1, widow of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in custody.
What People Are Saying
Nobel Peace Prize website: "The nomination process lasts from mid-October, when the submission form is posted, till the deadline on 31. January…Consensus is common, but it a simple majority vote is sufficient. The decision is final and without appeal."
Asle Toje, deputy leader of the present Norwegian Nobel Committee, per Reuters: "Influence campaigns have a rather more negative effect than a positive one...some candidates push for it really hard and we do not like it."
In nominating U.N. Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, and Gaza-based doctors, European Parliament MEP Matjaz Nemec, said: "Francesca Albanese holds up a mirror to us all and is firmly committed to international law and the foundations we built in response to the greatest massacre in human history – World War II.”
What Happens Next
The annual Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony will take place in the Oslo City Hall on 10 December, where the Nobel Lecture will be delivered by the Laureate who receives the Nobel Medal and Diploma.
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