The Austrian broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) organised the national final Wer singt für Österreich?

Performing during the show in position 12, "Loin d'ici" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May.

[6] From 2011 to 2013, ORF set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Austria, with both the public and a panel of jury members involved in the selection.

[11] The members of the expert panel were: An aggregate press jury vote with Christian Ude as the representative during the show.

The jury consisted of the following eight members: Nine artists were nominated by the ORF Eurovision Song Contest Team led by ORF chief editor Stefan Zechner, which collaborated with music expert Eberhard Forcher in order to make the selections, while a tenth act was chosen through a Facebook-based online wildcard selection.

[7] For the wildcard selection, ORF invited all interested artists to submit their songs to the broadcaster between 17 November 2015 and 11 December 2015.

[7] The broadcaster received 37 submissions at the close of the deadline, which were reviewed by the ORF Eurovision Team and posted on their Facebook page.

[12] Based on editorial considerations and viewer response, ORF shortlisted five entries from these submissions for a 24-hour online voting period that commenced on 14 January 2016.

[19] Zoë made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Loin d'ici" as the Austrian Eurovision entry.

On 9 April, Zoë performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Hera Björk.

[25] On 27 April, a farewell party was held for Zoë before she travelled to Stockholm for the contest, which was hosted by Riem Hagazi.

[27] On 25 January 2016, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in.

[34][35] During the performance, Zoë walked down a yellow-pink brick road that appeared on the LED stage floor accompanied by a wind machine effect.

[43][44] Voting during the three shows was conducted under a new system that involved each country now awarding two sets of points from 1–8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting.

Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency.

This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.

[45] In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently.