Cyprus in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest

The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) debuted Cyprus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2003.^[1] For its first entry, CyBC opened the submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries until 12 September 2003. From all 29 songs submitted to CyBC, Theodora Rafti was selected as the Cypriot entrant. Her entry "Mia efhi" was presented during the television program Ora Kyprou (Cypriot time) on 15 September. At the contest, the song was performed third in the running order and placed 14th out of the 16 entries, with 16 points.^[2] For the 2004 contest, a ten-participant national final hosted by Nikos Bogiatzis was held on 7 September 2004. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury and public televoting. Only the televoting results were revealed, which Marios Tofi and the song "Oneira" won, with Louis Panagiotis placing second and Rafail Georgiou & Anna Loizou placing in third. At the contest, Cyprus improved from the year prior, performing ninth in the running order and placing 8th out of the 18 entries.^[3]

Despite hosting a ten-participant national final and selecting Rena Kiriakidi with the song "Tsirko", the nation was absent from the 2005 contest due to an "internal issue" with the selected song;^[4] the country's late withdrawal; however, allowed the Cypriot public to still vote that year. Cyprus returned for the 2006 contest with the song "Agoria koritsia" performed by Luis Panagiotou and Christina Christofi. Similar to 2004, the entry had been selected by a national final. The eight-participant event took place on 30 September 2006 and the winner was chosen by a combination of votes from a professional jury (40%) and public televoting (60%). As there was a tie at the end of the voting with Sotiris Charalampous and "Prosefchi", the results of the televoting took precedence sending "Agoria koritsia" to Bucharest.^[5] At the contest, the song was performed second in the running order and placed eighth out of the 15 participants.^[6] The next year, a similar eight-participant national final was held, only that instead, the winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury and public televoting. The final was held on 29 September 2007, and Yiorgos Ioannides was selected with the song "I mousiki dinei ftera".^[7] At the contest, the song was performed fourth in the running order and placed 14th out of the 17 entries, garnering 29 points.^[8]

Two more eight-participant national finals selected the Cypriot entries in 2008 and 2009. For the 2008 contest, which was hosted by CyBC in Limassol, Cyprus,^[9] the final was held on 28 June 2008 and was hosted by Christiana Stavrou and Kiriakos Pastides. The winner was chosen by a combination of votes from a professional jury (40%) and public televoting (60%).^[10] Elena Mannouri and Charis Savva represented the country with the song "Gioupi gia!", which was performed last (15th) at the contest and placed 10th with 46 points.^[11] The entry for 2009 was Rafaella Kosta represented the country with the song "Thalassa, ilios, aeras, fotia". The final was held on 3 October 2009 and was hosted by Grigoriadis Christos and Mary Kanther. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury (which included Christina Metaxa who represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009) and public televoting.^[12] At the contest, the song was performed eighth on the night and placed 11th out of the 13 participants.^[13]

Cyprus did not participate in 2010 because of unspecified reasons. Although CyBC was in talks with the EBU to return to the contest in 2013, it subsequently did not. On 3 July 2014, CyBC announced its return to the competition after a four-year absence,^[14] and its entry, Sophia Patsalides with the song "I pio omorfi mera", was selected internally by the broadcaster and announced on 21 July.^[15][16] At the contest, Cyprus finished in ninth place out of 16 participating entries.^[17] Although Cyprus did not participate in the 2015 contest for financial reasons, the nation returned for the 2016 contest, only to place in the bottom two at both events: second-to-last in 2016 with George Michaelides and the song "Dance Floor" in Valletta, Malta and last in the 2017 contest with Nicole Nicolaou and the song "I Wanna Be a Star" in Tbilisi, Georgia. The latter marked the country's worst result in the contest.^[18] Both of these entries had been selected internally by the broadcaster.^[19][20] The following year, on 11 June 2018, CyBC announced that they would not participate in the contest in the 2018 contest,^[21] with no reasons of their withdrawal being published.

On 21 August 2024, CyBC announced it would return to the contest in 2024 after a six-year absence, having internally selected Maria Pissarides – an eleven-year-old student of a performing arts school in the United Kingdom – to represent the country.^[22][23] Pissarides was selected following an evaluation of a proposal made by the production company Chandal Entertainment Ltd, which also subsequently announced auditions to select dancers who would join the singer on stage, and the spokesperson for the Cypriot jury at the final.^[24][25] The song, titled "Crystal Waters", written by Armin Gilani, Sophia Patsalides and Pissarides herself, was presented to the public on 30 September during the breakfast television show Omorfi mera ("Beautiful day") on RIK 1;^[26][27] a special listening session reserved for the press was previously held at the Event Hall of the CyBC Archive in Nicosia on 27 September.^[28] Pissarides' performance at the contest was staged by Layla Ellison.^[29] She was accompanied on stage by four dancers, namely Adriana Markich, Andriana Polemiti, Ciara Economopoulos and Danae Petrou.^[30] At the end of voting, Pissarides brought Cyprus its best result since 2014, placing 13th with 60 points.^[1]

On 14 July 2025, CyBC confirmed its intention to participate in the 2025 contest and to continue to internally select its representative, opening a submission period where artists and composers would be able to submit their entries for the competition until the following 8 September.^[31] At the closing of the period, applications from 70 artists and 20 entries had been received. The selection was carried out by a committee composed of Spyros Spyrou, 2025 Cypriot adult contest representative Theo Evan, Salomi Hatzineophytou, Marios Kallenos and Zoe Kyriakou^[32] following an audition round held on 13 and 14 September 2025 at the CyBC studios in Nicosia.^[33] The selected artists were revealed to be Rafaella Panteli and Christos Georgiou on 23 September;^[34] their competing entry, "Away", was written by Andy Lys, Christopher Wortley, Greig Watts, Hannah Brine, Paul Drew and Peter Barringer,^[32] and released on 6 November.^[35] Cyprus placed 16th in the final, scoring 50 points; 47 points from the online vote and 3 points from the juries.

On 12 June 2026, CyBC confirmed its participation in the 2026 contest and opened a submission period for interested artists and songwriters to submit their applications until the following 30 June and 8 July, respectively.^[36] The broadcaster received 209 submissions at the closing of the deadline and shortlisted 45 artists for an audition round, which concluded on 10 July, with Harry Georgiou subsequently announced as the Cypriot representative on 13 July during the RIK Central News Bulletin.^[37][38]

The contests are broadcast online worldwide through the official Junior Eurovision Song Contest website junioreurovision.tv and YouTube. In 2015, the online broadcasts featured commentary in English by junioreurovision.tv editor Luke Fisher and 2011 Bulgarian Junior Eurovision Song Contest entrant Ivan Ivanov.^[40] The Cypriot broadcaster, CyBC, sent their own commentator to each contest in order to provide commentary in the Greek language and English languages. Spokespersons were also chosen by the national broadcaster in order to announce the awarding points from Cyprus. The table below list the details of each commentator and spokesperson since 2003.

• Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest