The first Rallye Internazionale di Sanremo was held in 1928, with its French-language title — using "rallye" rather than the Italian "rally" — inspired by the Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo. A second successful edition followed in 1929, but the event was then handed to new organisers who converted it into a street race through the town. The first such race, the 1° Circuito Automobilistico Sanremo, took place in 1937 and was won by Achille Varzi.
The rally was revived in 1961 under the name Rallye dei Fiori ("Rally of the Flowers") and has been held every year since. From 1970 to 1972, Rallye Sanremo featured in the International Championship for Manufacturers, the precursor to the WRC, before joining the newly established World Rally Championship in 1973.
The rally ran continuously on the WRC calendar from 1973 through 2003, with the single exception of 1995 when it appeared only in the FIA 2-Litre World Championship for Manufacturers. Its position in northern Italy, winding through the roads of the Maritime Alps and the Ligurian hinterland, made it a distinctive event on the calendar.
For most of its WRC life the rally was a mixed-surface event run on both tarmac and gravel stages. From 1997 onward the format was changed to all-tarmac, concentrating competition on the asphalt mountain roads of the region.
The 1986 edition became one of the most controversial events in WRC history. The factory Peugeot team was disqualified at the end of the third day for running illegal side skirts, handing victory to Lancia. Peugeot had used the same car configuration in earlier rounds of the season without penalty and had passed pre-event scrutineering. Despite the team's appeal, organisers did not permit Peugeot to continue the rally. The FIA subsequently ruled that the exclusion had been illegal and that the Peugeot cars were in fact legal — a decision that led the governing body to annul the entire results of the 1986 Rallye Sanremo, one of the rare instances of a WRC round being struck from the record.
After being dropped from the WRC schedule in 2004 — replaced by Rally di Sardegna — Rallye Sanremo continued as a round of the Italian Rally Championship. From 2006 it also featured in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, extending its profile beyond the domestic Italian scene.
In 2015 the organisers and the FIA incorporated the historic Rallye Femminile Perla di Sanremo, a women's rally series held in Sanremo from 1952 to 1956, into the official numbering of the event. As a result, the 2015 edition was renumbered from the 57th to the 62nd Rallye Sanremo, and subsequent editions continued with the adjusted numbering system to honour the women's rally heritage from the 1950s.
Sanremo's geography defines the rally's character. The Maritime Alps rise directly behind the coastal city, providing tight, technical mountain roads with significant elevation change. The event's proximity to the French border and its tarmac stages in later years gave it a flavour distinct from the more open gravel stages of northern European rounds, placing high demand on tarmac setup and driver precision. Multiple constructors and drivers won both their first Italian victory and significant championship points across Sanremo's decades on the WRC calendar.