The tomato leaf miner (TLM), Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is a destructive insect pest of tomatoes and other solanaceous plants in Egypt and other countries all over the world. To monitor the preferred tomato cultivars for T. absoluta, some biological aspects, non-choice bioassay and free-choice bioassay tests were studied on six common tomato cultivars. Our results found that the tomato-86 cultivar has a superior ability to delay the development rate of TLM, while the tomato-GS cultivar accelerated the development rate. Also, results showed that T. absoluta larvae reared on the tomato-86 cultivar reduced the larval weight, larval survival, male and female pupal weight, mean number of laid eggs/plant and oviposition preference%. Conversely, the tomato-GS reported a highly significant increase in all non-choice and free-choice bioassay parameters. So, the results indicated that tomato-86 was the least preferred cultivar, while tomato-GS was the most preferred to T. absoluta. Therefore, we recommend planting the tomato-86 cultivar that could be used as a fundamental approach in integrated pest management (IPM) programs against T. absoluta.