Abstract. Given a positive integer n and a real number p ∈ [0,1], let D(n,p) denote the random digraph defined in the following way: each of the binom(n,2) possible edges on the vertex set {1,2,3,…,n} is included with probability 2p, where all edges are independent of each other. Thereafter, a direction is chosen independently for each edge, with probability 1/2 for each possible direction. In this paper, we study the probability that a random instance of D(n,p) is acyclic, i.e., that it does not contain a directed cycle. We find precise asymptotic formulas for the probability of a random digraph being acyclic in the sparse regime, i.e., when np = O(1). As an example, for each real number μ, we find an exact analytic expression for φ(μ) = lim_{n→ ∞} n^{1/3} ℙ{D(n,1/n (1+μ n^{-1/3})) is acyclic}.