Taylor Swift will perform at the 60th CMA Awards on November 18, her first performance at the ceremony in 13 years. The Country Music Association and ABC announced the Taylor Swift CMA Awards performance on Friday, November 13, five days before the milestone show airs live from Nashville.
Taylor Swift CMA Awards Performance Ends A 13-Year Wait
The announcement came from the Country Music Association and ABC on Friday, with the CMA’s own release confirming Swift will perform at “The 60th Annual CMA Awards,” 13 years after her last performance on that stage and a decade after her most recent appearance at the show. Good Morning America carried the confirmation on Friday morning, November 13, and the CMA framed the booking in its headline as Swift “Returning 13 Years After Her Last CMA Awards Performance.”
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The 60th annual ceremony airs live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Wednesday, November 18, from 8 to 11 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, with next-day streaming on Hulu. Lainey Wilson hosts for a third consecutive year. The CMA says presenters will be announced in the coming days and that a limited number of tickets remain for the arena show. The night also carries a companion stream, CMA Awards Backstage Live presented by Bath & Body Works, hosted by Lauren Alaina and Haley Baylee.
Swift joins a performer lineup that already runs deep for a milestone year. Parade reports the announced performers include Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Tim McGraw, Cody Johnson, Ella Langley, Zach Top, Tucker Wetmore and The Red Clay Strays, and that the 60th anniversary celebration will also feature a special tribute to the late Dolly Parton. Parton’s final recorded song, “Torn,” was released this week as the closing track on U2’s new album, which makes the tribute one of the night’s most charged moments before Swift sings a note. What Swift herself will perform has not been revealed.
The Last CMA Stage: “Red,” The Pinnacle Award And 2013
Swift’s history with this show is the reason a single performance booking carries this much weight. She first attended the CMA Awards in 2006, won her first CMA Award in 2007 with the Horizon Award, and became the youngest Entertainer of the Year winner in CMA history in 2009. The CMA’s announcement notes she remains the youngest artist ever to win that honor, and she won it again in 2011 on her way to 12 career CMA Awards.
Her last performance on the CMA stage came at the 2013 awards, where she performed an acoustic version of “Red” alongside Vince Gill and Alison Krauss. That same night, Swift received the Pinnacle Award, and the presenters told her story in miniature: Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, George Strait, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts, the country headliners she had opened for as a teenager on her way up, handed her the award together. She has presented at the show since, most recently a decade ago, but she has not performed at the ceremony in the 13 years since that “Red” performance.
A Nomination Night, Not Just A Performance
Swift is not arriving as a nostalgia booking. She is a nominee at this year’s show, up for Single of the Year with “I Knew It, I Knew You,” her song from the Toy Story 5 soundtrack. The nomination is the 26th of her CMA career, a number the CMA itself put in Friday’s announcement, which underlines how unusual the shape of this return is: the biggest pop star in the world walking back into country music’s biggest night as both a performer and a contender.
Her own reaction to the nomination, posted on Instagram when the nominations landed in September, was playful and, at the time, read as an attendance confirmation rather than a performance promise. “LOOKS LIKE I HAVEN’T YEE’D MY LAST HAW THANK YOU CMA!!!!” she wrote, adding, “See you there Nov. 18.” Friday’s announcement upgrades that promise. She will not just be in the building at Bridgestone Arena; she will be on its stage, in the middle of the 60th anniversary show, with a Single of the Year result still to be decided on the night.
That combination is what makes November 18 a genuine appointment night. A 13-year performance gap, a milestone anniversary edition, a live nomination and a host, Lainey Wilson, who represents the generation that rose while Swift was away from this stage: the CMA has built its 60th show around country music’s present, and Swift’s return threads its past straight through it. The performance song stays under wraps until show night, and the presenters are still to come, but the headline fact is now official and on the record: Taylor Swift performs at the CMA Awards again on Wednesday, November 18, live on ABC and Disney+.
References
Country Music Association, “Taylor Swift To Perform At The 60th Annual CMA Awards,” cmaworld.com, November 13, 2026. Parade, “Taylor Swift Is Returning to the CMA Awards Stage for the First Time in 13 Years,” November 13, 2026. Billboard, “Taylor Swift to Perform at CMA Awards for First Time in 13 Years,” November 13, 2026.
