The Croatian participating broadcaster, Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT), organised the national final Dora 2003 to select its entry for the contest.

Since 1993, HRT organised the national final Dora in order to select its entry for the contest, a method that was continued for its 2003 participation.

The results of all shows were determined solely by public televoting, and the votes were divided into five telephone regions in Croatia, each of them which created an overall ranking from which points from 1 (lowest) to 12 (highest) were assigned to the competing songs.

[5][6] On 15 December 2002, HRT opened a submission period where artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster with the deadline on 20 January 2003.

[2] A fifteen-member expert committee consisting of representatives of Damir Matković (HRT), Aleksandar Kostadinov (HRT), Željko Mesar (HRT), Miroslav Škoro (HDU), Stjepan Mihaljinec (HDS), Siniša Doronjga (HGU), Đorđe Novković (Croatia Records), Fedor Boić (Tonika), Boris Horvat (Aquarius Records), Silvije Varga (Dancing Bear), Siniša Bizović (Dallas Records), Branko Komljenović (Menart), Tihomir Preradović (Tutico), Željko Barba (Orfej) and Goran Karan (Skalinada) reviewed the received submissions and selected twenty-four artists and songs for the competition.

[15] An English version of "Više nisam tvoja" entitled "This Is for Real" was presented to the public on 16 March during a special programme broadcast on HTV1 and HR 2.

[16] On 21 March, HRT announced that "Više nisam tvoja" would be performed in a bilingual mix of both Croatian and English at the contest.