The new rules for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest are as follows:

The countries that did NOT reach the Top 10 End Result of the 2003 Contest had to compete with all the other countries that wanted to join. This meant that the 2004 Contest was split into two nights: one for the preliminary and one for the actual contest itself. As standard, the Big Four (Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom) were placed for this year's final. However, if one of the Big Four was to be in the top ten (as Spain was in 2003) the first eleven would be placed for the final, and so on.

The Top 10 End Result of the Preliminary were added to the fourteen countries that were already on the 2004 Contest-list.