The interaction of natural alpha-, beta-, and gamma-cyclodextrins (CDs) with 14 hydrophobic ionic moieties of ionic liquids (ILs) was systematically examined in dilute aqueous solutions using isothermal titration microcalorimetry (ITC) and NMR spectroscopy. The studied cationic and anionic moieties involved some recently developed heavily fluorinated structures, as well as some others of common use. To isolate the effect of a given ion, the measurements were performed on salts containing the hydrophobic IL ion in question and a complexation-inactive counterion. Additional ITC experiments on ILs whose both cation and anion can interact appreciably with the CD cavity demonstrated that to resolve the effect of individual ions from such data is generally a tricky task and confirmed the superiority of the isolation strategy adopted for the purpose throughout this work. The binding constant, enthalpy and entropy determined at 298.15 K for the 1:1 (ion:CD) inclusion complex formation range in broad limits, being 0 < K < 2 x 10(5), 0 < -Delta(r)H degrees/(kJ.mol(-1)) < 44, and 28 < T Delta(r)S degrees/(kJ.mol(-1)) < 14, respectively. The stabilities of complexes of perfluorohexyl bearing ions with beta-CD belong to the highest ever observed with natural CDs in water. The established binding affinity scales were discussed in both thermodynamic and molecular terms. The concepts of hydrophobic interaction and guest host size matching supported by simple molecular modeling proved useful to rationalize the observed widely different binding affinities and suggest possible binding modes. Enthalpy and entropy contributions to the stability of the ion-CD complexes were found to compensate each other considerably obeying more or less the linear compensation relationship marked by existing literature data on binding other guests to natural CDs. As outliers to this pattern, the most stable complexes of -C(6)F(13) bearing ions with beta-CD were found to receive an enhanced inherent entropy stabilization due to extraordinarily high extent of desolvation occurring in the course of binding.