The Scottish Parliament has 129 members, known as MSPs. There are 73 constituency MSPs and 56 regional MSPs. A party needs 65 seats to secure a majority. Counting will begin on Friday morning.
09/05/2026
BBC Radio Scotland
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09/05/2026
BBC Radio Scotland
The SNP wins its fifth consecutive Scottish Parliament election after securing 58 seats
Scottish Labour and Reform are tied in second after both parties finish with 17 seats
The Scottish Greens secure 15 seats, with the Scottish Conservatives on 12 and the Scottish Lib Dems on 10
The final result was declared in the Highlands and Islands regional list at 01:21 on Saturday
SNP leader John Swinney says he hopes to "enjoy a more co-operative relationship" with the UK government when he returns to Holyrood
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar admits his party lost the argument for change and was hurting
Reform's Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, says his party has built a "very solid base"
Elections also took place in England and Wales where Plaid Cymru became the largest party. Keep across the wider UK picture through our live coverage
Edited by Paul McLaren
Hannah Mary Goodlad won in Shetland for the SNP
Pollster Mark Diffley believes the polls held up as the result last night as the result turned out to be what had been predicted all along – a clear win for the SNP but not an overall majority.
"There were a few surprises," he tells BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast.
"Shetland was the one that surprised me the most because it was very different to what we thought."
The SNP's Hannah Mary Goodlad took Shetland with 47% of the vote – the first time that Shetland has not been represented by the Liberal party and later the Lib Dems since Jo Grimond was elected in 1950.
Diffley adds that the Tory vote held up well in the south of Scotland despite a disappointing night for the Scottish Conservatives.
The election result was a clear victory for John Swinney and the SNP – but things couldn't have been much tighter with the other parties.
Labour, who not so long ago harboured ambitions of toppling the SNP, finished a distant second on 17 seats – tied with Reform, who made their electoral breakthrough in Scotland.
The Scottish Greens won a record 15 seats – including their first ever constituency victories.
The Conservatives lost their position as the parliament's largest opposition party, suffering their worst-ever Holyrood election result to finish with 12 seats.
The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, returned 10 MSPs.
After an historic day – and very, very late night – we're back with our live coverage of reaction to the result of the Scottish Parliament election 2026.
The SNP has won a fifth successive Scottish Parliament election, but fallen short of its target of an overall majority at Holyrood.
The party won 58 seats, with 65 needed for a majority.
Stick with us throughout the day as we bring you more news and and analysis.
Thank you for staying with us as the Scottish election continued into the early hours.
We are now pausing our live coverage but will resume on Saturday morning, when we will bring you more from the political parties as well as reaction and analysis.
The SNP has won its fifth Scottish Parliament election in a row, taking 58 seats. It is by far the largest party but is short of an overall majority.
Labour and Reform tied for second place with 17 seats each.
SNP 'emphatically' won
Labour 'hurting'
Reform wins its first seats
Scottish Greens win first constituency seats
Scottish Conservatives have a 'tough election'
Lib Dems win key seats
Phil Sim
Scotland political correspondent
The SNP has defied political gravity by winning a fifth consecutive term in office.
Yes, John Swinney's party has fallen short of their self-imposed goal of securing an outright majority – but the Holyrood system makes that an incredibly tall order.
And they will finish miles clear of a hopelessly fractured pack of opposition parties.
Labour and the Conservatives are each in a desperate position, with the former having lost seats at every Holyrood poll since 1999 and the latter scoring their worst ever result.
Reform UK meanwhile have come from nowhere to tie with Labour in second place. Having sparked frequent confrontations and fiery rhetoric during the campaign, they may have a similarly explosive impact on the new term of parliament.
The Scottish Greens are in bouyant mood, having captured their first ever constituencies and list representation in every part of Scotland.
And the Lib Dems have shaken off the shock loss of Shetland to grab new seats from the rural Highlands to the urban central belt.
All three of those parties will feel they have growing influence, and will want to make their mark on the next five years.
After a dramatic day, here's a selection of images showing how the Scottish election unfolded.
Vote counting started across Scotland at 09:00 this morning
SNP leader John Swinney celebrated his victory in the Perthshire North constituency
Holly Bruce (centre) won Nicola Sturgeon's former seat in Glasgow Southside for the Scottish Greens
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (left) said his party was "hurting" as results started coming in.
Thomas Kerr was among the first Reform MSPs to be elected to the Scottish Parliament
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton won his seat in the Edinburgh North Western constituency
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay watched the votes being counted at Braehead Arena
No election is complete without a candidate in an unusual outfit… Wildlife campaigner and election candidate Robert Pownall, who was dressed as a gannet, stood in Edinburgh Central against the SNP's Angus Robertson and successful Scottish Green Party candidate Lorna Slater
With the much-delayed Highlands and Islands result now in, we have full details of the regional MSP vote. 
Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent
Everything in Holyrood is proportional to your electoral success, so opposition parties get a share of debating time and committee convenerships (which will be elected for the first time in this parliament) in relation to their size.
With Labour and Reform UK tied in second place it’s likely the parties' business managers on the parliamentary bureau will have to come to agreement about seating arrangements in the chamber and the location of office selection.
My guess is that the parties will take it in turns each week to ask the first question at FMQs, but they will get the same number of follow-up questions.
It also means that if either party gives up an MSP to act as presiding officer it would drop into third place.
The regional list result for Highlands and Islands is in. Reform (Vic Currie and Max Bannerman) and the Scottish Greens (Arianne Burgess and Kristopher Leask) both won two seats. The SNP (Maree Todd), the Scottish Conservatives (Tim Eagle) and the Scottish Lib Dems (Morven-May MacCallum) all picked up one seat apiece.
Full results here
In that final result, Reform and the Scottish Greens both won two seats on the regional list in the Highlands and Islands.
The SNP, the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Lib Dems all picked up one seat apiece.
The SNP has won its fifth Scottish election with 58 seats – but fallen short of an overall majority.
Confirmation came as the final result was declared in the Highlands and Islands regional list, more than 16 hours after counting began.
Labour and Reform were tied for second after both parties won 17 seats, with the Scottish Greens finishing fourth with 15 seats.
It looks like the Highlands and Islands result is finally about to be announced.
We'll bring you details of the declaration as soon as we have it.
With the last regional list result still to come in, the papers went to print without a final tally of MSPs – but were still able to give their take on it.
The National bundles the Scottish vote with the success of Plaid Cymru, pointing out that nationalist parties are now the largest in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Daily Record challenges John Swinney to deliver change after his party secured a fifth term in office.
Other papers, however, point out that the SNP leader failed to secure the outright majority which he had said would be a mandate for another independence referendum.
And, despite the Scottish Conservatives losing more than a dozen seats, the Scottish Daily Express declares that the "blue wall" had held.
The Times, in its Scottish edition, says Swinney has been denied a majority, while The Scotsman also highlights the "surge" of Green votes.
The Scottish Sun says it's a historic win for the SNP but also a "support slump" which left Swinney well short of a majority, while the Scottish Daily Mail says thousands of Scots voted tactically to send a message to the SNP leader.
Meanwhile, the defeat of SNP's Angus Robertson by Lorna Slater of the Scottish Greens is the lead story for the Edinburgh Evening News.
As we enter the second day of counting in the Highlands, a breakdown of the other declared regional list results shows the spread of seats among parties other than the SNP.
Iain Macinnes
BBC Scotland
There are folk in deckchairs here dozing off at the count in Inverness.
I can see a man in a Stetson hat, plenty people swigging fizzy juice in an effort to stay awake, and folk are getting a bit delirious.
There is still adjudication going on for the regional list, but I’ll be here to the bitter end to bring you the result – which could still be really important when it comes to the make-up of the Scottish Parliament.Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent
To all those journalists who opined about how much they missed an overnight count, be careful what you wish for…
Almost 15 hours after counting got under way we’re still waiting for the final Highlands and Islands list result.
This will determine the final make-up of the Scottish Parliament and which party takes second place in the election.
It’s significant because it will determine not just the seating arrangements at Holyrood but also who gets to ask the first question at first minister’s questions.
Look back at the key moments from across the day as the results of the Scottish election emerged.
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The Scottish election results – in one minute
A breakdown of how the vote share has changed compared to the last Holyrood election shows the dip in SNP support and the emergence of Reform. Phil Sim
Scotland political correspondent
This election has come tantalisingly close to an outright majority – of new MSPs.
As it stands, with one region still to declare, there are 59 new MSPs set to turn up for orientation at Holyrood on Monday.
A good few of them have been MPs or councillors or indeed Holyrood staffers previously, so they will not be complete novices.
But there will still be quite a learning curve for the new members.
And given there has been huge turnover in the SNP ranks, with a number of very experienced members leaving, the same could well be true of John Swinney's cabinet.
We may well see some first-time MSPs going straight into government.
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