The 52nd American Music Awards published a 50-category slate

The 52nd American Music Awards set out its category slate on 11 March 2026, listing 50 awards. The show framed the list as a read on a changing market, covering artists, songs, albums, tours and what it called the year's biggest music moments.

The general categories ran to 14: Artist of the Year, New Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Collaboration of the Year, Social Song of the Year, Best Music Video, Best Soundtrack, Tour of the Year, Breakthrough Touring Artist, Breakthrough Album of the Year, Throwback Song of the Year, Best Vocal Performance and Song of the Summer.

Genre categories made up the rest. Pop, country, hip-hop, R&B, Latin and rock/alternative each carried five awards, covering male, female, breakthrough, song and album. Dance/electronic, Afrobeats and Americana/folk took a single artist award each, and K-pop was split into Best Male K-Pop Artist and Best Female K-Pop Artist.

Ticket dates followed on 23 March. A presale opened at 10am PT on Wednesday 25 March, with the general on-sale two days later at the same hour, both through AXS. The ceremony itself was set for Memorial Day, Monday 25 May, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the largest venue in the show's history, on CBS and Paramount+.

Nominations were scheduled for Tuesday 14 April, with fan voting opening the same day and running to 8 May. The AMAs bill themselves as the largest fan-voted award show in the world, created by Dick Clark and first handed out in 1974, and are still produced by Dick Clark Productions.

By the time the ceremony ran, Bruno Mars, BTS, KATSEYE and Sabrina Carpenter had each taken three of those 50 awards, and Karol G had been named for the International Artist Award of Excellence. Ceremony dates and slates are tracked in award watch and our pop hub.