Bulgaria participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "If Love Was a Crime" written by Borislav Milanov, Sebastian Arman, Joacim Bo Persson and Poli Genova. The song was performed by Poli Genova, who had previously represented Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011 where she failed to qualify to the final with the song "Na inat". In November 2015, the Bulgarian broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT) announced that they would be returning to the Eurovision Song Contest after a two-year absence following their withdrawal in 2014 due to financial limitations. On 19 February 2016, the broadcaster announced that Poli Genova had been selected to compete at the 2016 contest in , Sweden. The song that Genova competed with, "If Love Was a Crime", was also internally selected and was presented to the public on 21 March 2016.

Bulgaria was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2016. Performing during the show in position 12, "If Love Was a Crime" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. This marked the second time Bulgaria managed to qualify to the final, which they achieved after nine years since their last appearance in the final in 2007. It was later revealed that Bulgaria placed fifth out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 220 points. In the final, Bulgaria performed in position 8 and placed fourth out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 307 points.

Prior to the 2016 Contest, Bulgaria had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest nine times since its first entry in 2005. The nation achieved their best result in the contest in 2007 with the song "Water" performed by Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov, which placed fifth. To this point, their 2007 entry is also the only Bulgarian entry to have qualified to the Eurovision final; the nation had failed to qualify to the final with their other eight entries. In 2013, the Bulgarian broadcaster internally selected Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov to once again represent the nation as they were the only act that managed to qualify Bulgaria to the final. However, their song "Samo shampioni" failed to qualify, making it the sixth consecutive qualification failure for the country.

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