Participation in the
Eurovision Song Contest is open to members of the
European Broadcasting Union (EBU), of which
San Marino RTV (SMRTV) is a member since 1995. On 11 November 2007, an email from an SMRTV representative to the
OGAE Italy stated that they were considering entering the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in , pending approval by their board members. A decision would have to be made by 15 November, the deadline for interested broadcasters to submit an application for participation in the . Despite this, SMRTV received approval to take part and officially announced their participation on 21 November 2007. performing "Complice" in the
first semi-final of the . For their first Eurovision appearance, SMRTV sought to host an internal selection process, choosing
Miodio with the Italian language song "Complice". The nation's first entry did not fare well, placing last in the
first semi-final, receiving just five points in total and not qualifying to the final. In June 2008, the Sammarinese Minister of Culture announced that they had good hopes to return to the next year's edition. After initially applying to take part in the in
Moscow, Russia, SMRTV ultimately opted to not return, citing financial difficulties. San Marino did not return for the either, again stating financial reasons as preventing participation. Had they obtained state or private funding for an entry, SMRTV had agreed to send the Italian duo
Paola e Chiara to the contest, held in
Oslo, Norway that year. After a two-year absence from the contest, San Marino returned in with Italian singer
Senit performing "
Stand By", which failed to take the nation to the final. From 2012 to 2014, the nation sent
Valentina Monetta to the contest on three consecutive occasions, which made her the first singer to participate in three consecutive contests since
Udo Jürgens, who competed in , and for . Monetta's entries in ("
The Social Network Song") and ("
Crisalide (Vola)") respectively failed to qualify San Marino for the final. However, in , Monetta managed to bring the nation to the final for the first time, where she placed 24th with the song "
Maybe". The EBU announced soon after that entries intended for 2020 would not be eligible for the following year, though each broadcaster would be able to send either their 2020 representative or a new one. Senhit later revealed that she would return to represent San Marino for the
Eurovision Song Contest 2021. Her
2021 entry "
Adrenalina" featuring
Flo Rida managed to qualify the nation to the final the third time in its history, eventually placing 22nd of the 26 finalists with 50 points. the
2023 entry "
Like an Animal" by Italian band
Piqued Jacks finished last in its semi-final with no points, making it the first entry from San Marino to finish with
nul points, and the
2024 entry "
11:11" by Spanish alternative rock band
Megara finished 14th in the semi-final. This streak was broken in 2025, when Italian producer
Gabry Ponte with "
Tutta l'Italia" qualified San Marino to the final for the fourth time, where it eventually finished 26th (last) with 27 points.
Selection process Prior to the 2018 contest, SMRTV had selected their Eurovision Song Contest entry internally for all of their appearances in the contest. Their first experience with a national final type process came in where SMRTV opted to organise the online talent show
1in360 to select the entry. After a brief return to an internal selection for , the 2020 contest saw the nation's entry selected through
Digital Battle. As part of that process, 2011 entrant Senhit was selected internally, while her song was selected through an online poll. For 2021, SMRTV continued their cooperation with Senhit, returning to an internal selection for the year's contest. Following the success of the first edition, the Sammarinese Secretary of State for Tourism, Postal Services, Economic Cooperation and the World Expo
Federico Pedini Amati announced that the format had been confirmed for 2023. In August 2023, Amati confirmed that a third edition was planned to select the nation's 2024 entry, and the following October, the selection was confirmed until 2025.
Voting Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest typically consists of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent jury deliberation. From 2009 to 2015, the jury and public votes were combined and presented as one. San Marino does not organise a televote, however, due to their use of Italy's phone network, and because the small number of potential televoters would not meet the minimum voting threshold set by the EBU. As such, the Sammarinese vote was based solely on their jury during these contests. For the 2016 contest, the EBU introduced a new voting system where the jury and televoting points would be presented separately. If no televote was available, they would instead simulate a composite score using average televoting results from an undisclosed pre-selected group of countries. SMRTV objected to this format, particularly because the EBU would not divulge which countries they would use to create the result and because half of San Marino's points would be determined by others. For the 2017 contest, SMRTV proposed to enable televoting by Sammarinese residents through the use of a statistically representative panel of viewers, similar to the process used at the time in Italy's
Sanremo Music Festival. The panel would watch the shows of the contest live and vote during the normal televoting period; their vote would then be used as the country's televote. If any issues arose, the old format could be used as a backup. However, the EBU denied this request in March 2017, and the rules had since remained unchanged in this regard. At the 2022 contest, San Marino's jury vote was found to have irregular voting patterns during the second semi-final, along with five other nations. Consequently, these countries were given substitute aggregated jury scores for both the second semi-final and the final, calculated from the corresponding jury scores of countries with historically similar voting patterns as determined by the pots for the semi-final allocation draw for that contest. Their televoting scores were unaffected. The Flemish broadcaster
VRT later reported that the juries involved had made agreements to vote for each other's entries to secure qualification to the final. For the 2023 contest, the voting system underwent several changes, including a return of full televoting to determine the qualifiers from the semi-finals. In the event that a country cannot deliver a televoting result in a semi-final, a backup jury result would be used. This change allowed for the Sammarinese vote in the semi-finals to be based solely on its jury, however, the procedure of using calculated scores would still be used in the event that the Sammarinese jury is disqualified. == Participation overview==