The 53rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards Are Coming in October and We Already Know Who WE Want Nominated

THE 53RD ANNUAL DAYTIME EMMY AWARDS ARE COMING AND WE HAVE THOUGHTS

TL;DR: Submissions for the 53rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards opened on March 19 with nominations coming in July and the ceremony set for Los Angeles on Friday, October 30. NATAS announced rule changes affecting craft categories, the Guest Performer category, and how fiction and non-fiction series compete. We broke down everything you need to know and then we made a wish list because we simply could not help ourselves.

What You Need to Know

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences officially opened submissions for the 53rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on March 19, 2026, and the countdown to daytime’s biggest night has begun. Nominations will be announced in July, and the ceremony itself will take place in Los Angeles on Friday, October 30.

This year brings several significant changes to the submission and judging process that will directly affect General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, and Beyond the Gates.

The biggest shift hits the craft categories. The Daytime Emmys will now follow the Primetime Emmys format for categories like hair and makeup and costuming, requiring shows to submit a complete episode rather than a clip reel. Previously, the entire crew for a show would receive a nomination, but now only the specific crew members who worked on the submitted episode will get a nod. Shows can also be nominated multiple times in the same category, with more than one individual episode eligible for recognition.

Soap fans will be thrilled to hear that if at least 10 submissions come in between fiction and non-fiction in any given craft category, those categories will be split. That means soaps like General Hospital and The Young and the Restlesswill no longer have to compete against unscripted series like The Drew Barrymore Show and Sherri for awards like Costume Design. It is about time.

The Guest Performer in a Daytime Drama category is also tightening up. Actors can now only submit in this category if they appeared in a maximum of 19% of the episodes aired or streamed during the calendar year. Anyone at 20% or above must submit in Lead, Supporting, or Emerging Talent.

And judging has moved to a members only model, conducted by members of NATAS, the Television Academy, or dual members. Categories that consistently struggle to form a full judging panel may be considered for elimination going forward.

Daytime Emmy season is here and we want to hear who YOU think deserves a nomination this year! Send your dream ballot to [email protected] and we just might publish it!

Our Completely Biased and Absolutely Correct Wish List

We know. We are supposed to be journalists. We are supposed to be objective. But Emmy season brings out the unhinged soap fan in all of us, and we have five performances from the past year that we will be screaming about until that ceremony in October. In no particular order, because we refuse to rank our children:

Trisha Mann-Grant as Leslie Thomas on Beyond the Gates. 

Leslie Thomas has been a full scale force of nature this year on Beyond the Gates and Trisha Mann-Grant has played every single beat of it like a woman who came to collect. Leslie Thomas has been crossing lines, hijacking weddings, battling Vernon over her renovation, and delivering the kind of monologues that make you put your phone down and pay attention. Mann-Grant brings a ferocity and a vulnerability to Leslie that makes her impossible to look away from, and if the Daytime Emmys are paying attention, she deserves to be in that conversation.

Katelyn MacMullen as Willow Tait on General Hospital. 

Katelyn MacMullen has been quietly doing some of the best work on daytime this year and it is time for the industry to catch up. Willow Tait has been through the wringer on General Hospital and MacMullen has played every moment with a grounded emotional honesty that anchors some of the show’s most intense storylines. She makes you feel it. Every time. Put her name on the ballot.

Camryn Grimes as Mariah Copeland on The Young and the Restless. 

Camryn Grimes already has a Daytime Emmy and she has been doing the kind of work this year that says she is ready for another one. Mariah Copeland has been severely withdrawn, navigating therapy, and carrying the weight of a storyline that requires her to be both deeply internal and completely devastating at the same time. Grimes has been doing it without a single false note. The Young and the Restless has handed her some of the heaviest material on daytime and she has not dropped a single ounce of it.

Lisa Yamada as Luna Nozawa on The Bold and the Beautiful. 

Lisa Yamada turned Luna Nozawa into one of the most talked about characters on The Bold and the Beautiful this year, and that is not a small thing on a show packed with legacy names and iconic rivalries. Yamada brought something unsettling and magnetic to Luna that made viewers sit up and take notice, and her work deserves recognition on a stage bigger than a Forrester Creations showroom.

Dan Feuerriegel as EJ DiMera on Days of Our Lives. 

Dan Feuerriegel has been eating Days of Our Lives alive this year and leaving no crumbs. EJ DiMera is scheming, manipulating, wielding power like a weapon, and Feuerriegel plays every scene like a man who knows he is the most dangerous person in the room and wants you to know it too. He has taken the DiMera legacy and made it his own, and if the Emmys want to reward a villain performance that is both terrifying and absurdly entertaining, this is the one.

That is our list. We are not taking feedback. We are taking agreements only.

Who would be on YOUR Daytime Emmy wish list this year? Tell us your must have nominees in the comments because we know you have opinions and we want every single one of them!

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