The 1990 Tour de France was the 77th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 30 June and 22 July 1990. The 3,403.8 km (2,115.0 mi) race consisted of 21 stages and a prologue. American Greg LeMond (Z–Tomasso) repeated his 1989 victory in the general classification, ahead of Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera Jeans–Vagabond) and Erik Breukink (PDM–Concorde–Ultima) in second and third place respectively.

The Tour started with a prologue time trial at the Futuroscope theme park, won by Thierry Marie (Castorama). On the first stage, a four-rider group escaped and gained more than ten minutes on the rest of the field. Steve Bauer (7-Eleven) became the new leader of the race, but faltered in the Alps as Ronan Pensec (Z–Tomasso), also from the escape group, took over the race lead. Two days later, during a mountain time trial to Villard-de-Lans, the lead passed to Claudio Chiappucci, who had been in the same group as well. Chiappucci fought to hang on to his advantage over defending champion LeMond, but was overtaken in the final time trial on the penultimate stage. It was LeMond's third Tour victory, a feat he achieved without winning an individual stage.

The points classification was won by Olaf Ludwig (Panasonic–Sportlife), while the mountains classification was won by Thierry Claveyrolat (RMO). Gilles Delion (Helvetia–La Suisse) was the best young rider, while Eduardo Chozas (ONCE) was awarded the super-combativity prize. Z–Tomasso, the team of race winner LeMond, won the team classification.

The 1990 race was the first edition in which riders from Eastern Bloc nations participated. Ludwig became the first rider from East Germany and Dimitri Konyshev (Alfa Lum) was the first Soviet rider to win a stage at the Tour.

The 1990 Tour had a starting field of 22 teams of 9 cyclists. Of those 22, 16 teams qualified based on the FICP team rankings, while six teams were given wildcards. Notable teams who failed to qualify and were not invited were BH–Amaya Seguros and Café de Colombia with Luis Herrera, a double former winner of the mountains classification.

The largest numbers of riders from a nation came from France (35), with the next largest coming from Belgium (27), Spain (25), Italy (22), Netherlands (19), Colombia (14) and Switzerland (13). For the first time, riders from the Eastern Bloc competed in the Tour, ten in total, enabled by the changing political climate brought about by the revolutions in the Eastern Bloc countries. While several riders from Warsaw Pact nations had transferred to established Western teams, the Alfa Lum team was made up of exclusively Soviet cyclists. Three more teams included cyclists of a single nationality: Lotto–Superclub (Belgian), Postobón–Manzana–Ryalcao (Colombian), and Ariostea (Italian).

Of the 198 cyclists starting the race, 58 were riding the Tour de France for the first time. The average age of riders in the race was 27.77 years, ranging from the 21-year-old Antonio Miguel Díaz (Kelme–Ibexpress) to the 35-year-old Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle (Z–Tomasso). The Kelme–Ibexpress cyclists had the youngest average age while the riders on Panasonic–Sportlife had the oldest. The presentation of the teams – where the members of each team's roster are introduced in front of the media and local dignitaries – took place at the lakeside arena at Futuroscope theme park, 10 km (6.2 mi) north of the city of Poitiers, west-central France, which later hosted the prologue stage.

The teams entering the race were: