Contested by sixteen clubs, it operates a system of promotion and relegation with the Serie B, the lower level of the Primera Categoría.

[1] Eleven clubs have been crowned Ecuadorian champions, but four teams have a combined total of 55 championships.

The most common format is a two-stage tournament, in which teams qualify to a mini-league (Spanish: Liguilla) to determine the champion.

A third-place match also takes place in the Third Stage between the next two-best teams in the aggregate table.

All football in Ecuador was played at amateur level until 1950 when the Guayas Football Association (Spanish: Asociación de Fútbol del Guayas [AFG]) turned professional and held its first professional tournament for affiliated clubs (for clubs in Guayaquil).

In 1954, the football association in Pichincha (current the Asociación de Fútbol No Amatur de Pichincha [AFNA]) decided to turn professional and hold a professional tournament of their own for their affiliated clubs (for clubs in Quito and Ambato).

The first Ecuadorian Football Championship was contested between the champion and runner-up of the 1957 Campeonato Professional de Fútbol de Guayaquil of (Emelec and Barcelona, respectively) and the champion and runner-up of the 1957 Campeonato Professional Interandino (Deportivo Quito and Aucas, respectively).

This format continued until 1967 when a number of changes occurred: 1) the regional tournaments were discontinued after the 1967 season; 2) teams contesting the national championship from 1968 onwards were now part of the Primera Categoría; and 3) a second level of Ecuadorian football (Segunda Categoría) was put into play and a system of relegation and promotion began in 1967.

This anomaly is due to the fact that for the 1964 competition, teams from Guayaquil (including Barcelona and Emelec) declined to participate in the national championship.

Ecuadorian Ermen Benítez is the league's all-time top-scorer, having scored 191 goals over 15 season.