Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Oniro mou" written by Aris Kalimeris, Dimitris Stamatiou, Yianna Terzi and Mihalis Papathanasiou and performed by Terzi. A national final was scheduled to be held in order to select the Greek entry for the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal. Five entries were to compete in the final on 22 February 2018 where public voting would exclusively select the winner, however "Oniro mou" performed by Terzi was announced as the Greek entry on 16 February 2018 following the disqualification of four out of the five national final entries.
To promote the entry, a music video for the song was released and Terzi performed the song at both the fashion music series MADwalk and the Eurovision Live Lounge series hosted by ESCToday. Greece was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 8 May 2018. Performing fourteenth in the running order for the night, "Oniro mou" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Greece placed fourteenth out of the 19 participating countries in its semi-final with 81 points.
Background
Prior to the 2018 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 38 times since their debut in . The nation has won the contest on one occasion in with the song "My Number One" performed by Helena Paparizou. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004 contest, Greece managed to qualify for the final with each of their entries for several years. Between 2004 and 2013, the nation achieved nine top ten placements in the final. To this point, Greece in with Argo's "Utopian Land" failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, being absent from the final for the first time since 2000 and marking Greece's worst result at the contest.
The Greek national broadcaster, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ERT had been in charge of Greece's participation in the contest since their debut in 1974 until 2013, when the broadcaster was shut down by a government directive and replaced with the interim Dimosia Tileorasi (DT) and later by the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT) broadcaster. During this time, from 2013 through 2015, the Greek television station MAD TV organised the selection process. On 28 April 2015, a legislative proposal that resulted in the renaming of NERIT to ERT was approved and signed into law by the Hellenic Parliament; ERT began broadcasting once again on 11 June 2015, and shortly after confirmed their intentions to once again participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The Greek broadcaster has used various methods to select the nation's entry in the past, such as internal selections and televised national finals, to choose the performer, song or both to compete at Eurovision. Despite its desire for a full national final for the previous year's entry, the broadcaster eventually went with an internally selected entrant and a song selected by a national final. For 2018, the broadcaster once again announced a national final to select their entry.
Before Eurovision
Cancelled national final plans
On 1 October 2017, the ERT announced that they would be selecting their performer and song through a national final. A submission period was opened in early October 2017, where record labels were able to submit their proposed artists and composers until 20 October, a deadline which was later extended by one week to 27 October. Artists were required to be signed to record labels, while songs had to be performed in the Greek language and contain a native sound. If a suitable number of high quality entries were received, the broadcaster then planned to have the ultimate choice determined solely by a public vote. An eight-member artistic committee reviewed the entries and consisted of Anastasios Symeonidis (chairperson), Petros Dourdoubakis (songwriter and radio producer), Dimitris Ktistakis (conductor), Alexis Kostas, Mihalis Messinis (composer), Andreas Pylarinos (conductor), Giannis Spyropoulos (orchestrator) and Tsaras Pantazis (radio producer).