World Press Photo 2025

Three years ago, we restructured the World Press Photo Contest to reflect a more global perspective. Entries were grouped by region, and regional juries were introduced, ensuring that exceptional news and documentary photography from every corner of the world would be recognized and awarded. This regional structure that is at the core of our contest setup has worked well and will not change.

Yet, we knew that after the three years of using this contest setup there would be a need for evaluation and adjustment. Following thoughtful discussions with photographers, jury members, exhibition partners and others, we're pleased to announce updates to the categories, prizes and regions in the annual World Press Photo Contest.
More winners

The biggest change is more winning projects and photographers. We will go from 30 total winners, including honorable mentions, to 42. For the past three years, there has been one winning Single and one winning Story (containing between 4 and 10 photographs) per region. Now there will be three winners in these categories per region. There will also continue to be one Long-Term Project winner per region.

While it's impossible for any contest or exhibition to capture all the important stories from such large regions, having more winners gives the jury more flexibility.

We will encourage the jury to use this opportunity to ensure a diverse selection of styles and topics, including photography that focuses on breaking news, features, sports news, underrepresented human stories, uplifting human stories, environmental and nature stories. Many exhibition visitors have told us they missed the beauty of nature and the drama of sports photography that we had in the previous contest setup. We agree that themes like these are also a part of the world and deserve inclusion.