Cyprus has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 41 times since making its debut in . The Cypriot broadcaster that participates in the contest is the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC). Its first entry was "Monika" performed by the group Island, which finished sixth. The country's best result is a second-place finish with "" by Eleni Foureira in . Cyprus holds the record for having competed in the most editions of the contest without ever winning.
Between and , Cyprus failed to qualify from the semi-final round six times before withdrawing in . On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed its return to the contest for , with the country then qualifying for the final every year since, has since qualified for the final every year, a streak that lasted until when it did not qualify. Cyprus returned to the final again in and , but failed to qualify once more in 2025.
The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and thus is eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. It has participated in the contest representing Cyprus since its in 1981.
Since its first entry, CyBC has participated every year except for , , and . In 1988, CyBC withdrew its entry after it determined that the intended entry was ineligible; the song had been presented to jurors (but not selected) in the 1984 internal selection process, which was a violation of their selection rules. In 2001, the country did not qualify for the contest due to insufficiently high average scores in previous contests, according to the qualification process at the time. In 2014, the broadcaster decided to not participate in the contest and cited public indifference, public opinion regarding the 2012âÂÂ13 Cypriot financial crisis, and related budget restrictions as factors for not taking part. On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed their return to the contest in 2015. Cyprus hosted the Eurovision Song Project, which included 2 semi-finals, 1 second chance round and a final.
Since its return in 2015, Cyprus has only failed to qualify twice, those being in 2022 and 2025, and even reached its best result with "" by Eleni Foureira coming second in 2018. Cyprus holds the record for most editions competing in the contest without a single win to date. Most of the Cypriot entries have been sung in Greek or English; the exceptions are in , in which the song "Nomiza" included both Greek and Italian, and in , in which "Comme ci, comme ça" by Evridiki was entirely in French. Additionally, in both 2018 and , the songs had some phrases in Spanish.
Cyprus's exchange of the maximum 12 points with has occurred regularly in the contest, which is often met with derision from the audience. In the 32 instances (1981âÂÂ2025) of Cyprus being able to vote for Greece in a final, it has voted Greece as having the best song on 27 of them (the exceptions being 1981, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2015 and 2024). Since the introduction of televoting in , the two countries have consistently given each other the maximum 12 points except in 2015, when neither country gave their 12 points to the other, but both gave their maximum points to Italy.
Cyprus and never exchanged votes until 2003, a taboo attributed to the Cyprus dispute.
Since its first entry in 1981, Cyprus has had a mixture of varied results. The best result achieved so far is a second place, reached by Eleni Foureira at the 2018 contest.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Cyprus managed to reach the top 10 a number of times, something which made the Contest popular with the Cypriot public. Since 2004, Cyprus' performance has dropped notably. From 2006 to 2009 and again in 2011 and 2013, the country failed to reach the final.
At the same time when Cyprus' performance in the contest dropped vertically, Greece's performance improved very fast by one win and seven top ten results in one decade. This created a shift of interest, with the Cypriot public being more interested in the success of the Greek entry. This is probably because Greece, since 2004, seems to send very popular singers that have a well established fan-club in Cyprus, while Cyprus usually elects their contestants through an open talent contest, which often results in somewhat unknown artists representing the country.
Each participating broadcaster in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers and backing vocalists, among others.