Portugal participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Portuguese entry was selected through Festival Da Canção 2012, a national final organised by the Portuguese broadcaster RTP. Filipa Sousa represented Portugal with the song "Vida minha", which failed to qualify from the second semi-final, achieving 13th place with 39 points.

Portugal was considered to withdraw, because of the economic crisis in the country, but on 30 November 2011, RTP confirmed its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

On 9 December 2011, RTP called for participants for the national selection. Singers can apply through the RTP official website before 31 December 2011. They can advance to a special audition that will be held on 5–6 January 2012 in Lisbon and on 10–11 January in Oporto. Singers will be able to sing in Portuguese or in a foreign language (e.g. English). Established artists can send in their songs to RTP and will not have to go through the audition.

A special jury along with RTP will choose 12 candidates. Another five candidates will be chosen by the jury as back-up in case any of the initial 12 selected withdraws.

RTP will then invite six composers from various musical styles to compose songs. Composers and authors will create new songs specially for the 12 candidates, in order to suit their vocal skills. The songs must be no longer than three minutes. The songs have to be in Portuguese. RTP has hired two music producers to work in coordination with the composers in order to give the final touches to the 12 candidate entries.

The final of Festival Da Canção will be held on 10 March 2012. The winner will be decided through a combination of jury voting and SMS voting at a 50-50% stake.

On 2 January 2012, RTP announced that they received more than 400 applications. On January 13, the twelve contestants were revealed, as well as the five back-up singers. Three of the final twelve artists (Carlos Costa, Ricardo Soler and Rui Andrade) didn't go through the auditions, using instead their recognition as moderate established artists. The last two have already competed in Festival da Canção: Soler ended up fourth in the 2008 edition and Andrade finished third in the 2011 edition. RTP also announced that Sílvia Alberto and Pedro Granger would be hosting the show.

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