  We study $dS_5$ vacua within matter-coupled $N=4$ gauged supergravity in five
dimensions using the embedding tensor formalism. With a simple ansatz for
solving the extremization and positivity of the scalar potential, we derive a
set of conditions for the gauged supergravity to admit $dS_5$ as maximally
symmetric background solutions. The results provide a new approach for finding
$dS_5$ vacua in five-dimensional $N=4$ gauged supergravity and explain a number
of notable features pointed out in previous works. These conditions also
determine the form of the gauge groups to be $SO(1,1)\times G_{\textrm{nc}}$
with $G_{\textrm{nc}}$ being a non-abelian non-compact group. In general,
$G_{\textrm{nc}}$ can be a product of $SO(1,2)$ and a smaller non-compact group
$G'_{\textrm{nc}}$ together with (possibly) a compact group. The $SO(1,1)$
factor is gauged by one of the six graviphotons, that is singlet under
$SO(5)\sim USp(4)$ R-symmetry. The compact parts of $SO(1,2)$ and
$G'_{\textrm{nc}}$ are gauged by vector fields from the gravity and vector
multiplets, respectively. In addition, we explicitly study $dS_5$ vacua for a
number of gauge groups and compute scalar masses at the vacua. As in the
four-dimensional $N=4$ gauged supergravity, all the $dS_5$ vacua identified
here are unstable.
