the centennial bee

This year, 243 spellers earned their spots as national competitors by advancing through regional spelling bees, competing against students representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe. Spellers also will represent five countries outside the U.S.: the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Kuwait and Nigeria.

Spellers will compete in four segments of competition to determine who would take home the Scripps Cup: the Preliminaries, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals. All rounds of competition will be broadcast on ION platforms.

the contest rules of the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee

You can read the Contest Rules of the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee to learn more about what to expect from this year's Bee. We've highlighted two special elements of the competition below.

read the rules

vocabulary rounds

The second round of each segment of competition – the Preliminaries, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals – will be a vocabulary round, which will require the speller to orally select the correct multiple choice answer to a vocabulary question read by the pronouncer. This element of the competition, introduced in 2021, is designed to challenge the spellers and further advance the Bee’s focus on word knowledge and literacy.

spell-off

Historically, the competition ends when a speller spells correctly in a one-person, one-word round and is declared champion. However, the officials can choose to activate a Spell-off to declare a winner as they did in 2022 when Harini Logan won by correctly spelling 22 words. Each speller remaining in the competition would have 90 seconds to spell as many words as they could from a predetermined Spell-off list of words. After all spellers remaining in the competition had competed in the Spell-off, the speller who spelled the most words correctly would be declared champion.

prizes

what do the spellers receive?

For their participation in the Bee, our national competitors receive a number of awards and prizes from both the Bee and our prize sponsors. View every level of the prize structure for this year, from all spellers to the Champion!

see the complete prize list

Meet the Spellers

See all spellers

Television Schedule

preliminaries Tuesday, May 27 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

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quarterfinals Wednesday, May 28 8 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

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semifinals Wednesday, May 28 8 - 10 p.m. ET

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finals Thursday, May 29 8 - 10 p.m.

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meet our officials

Meet the officials who conduct the national competition of the Scripps National Spelling Bee! Officials and word panelists perform various roles throughout the year, including as judges, record keepers, pronouncers, and content creators and reviewers.

meet the officials