  Despite numerous attempts, no exomoon has firmly been confirmed to date. New
missions like CHEOPS aim to characterize previously detected exoplanets, and
potentially to discover exomoons. In order to optimize search strategies, we
need to determine those planets which are the most likely to host moons. We
investigate the tidal evolution of hypothetical moon orbits in systems
consisting of a star, one planet and one test moon. We study a few specific
cases with ten billion years integration time where the evolution of moon
orbits follows one of these three scenarios: (1) "locking", in which the moon
has a stable orbit on a long time scale ($\gtrsim$ 10$^9$ years); (2) "escape
scenario" where the moon leaves the planet's gravitational domain; and (3)
"disruption scenario", in which the moon migrates inwards until it reaches the
Roche lobe and becomes disrupted by strong tidal forces. Applying the model to
real cases from an exoplanet catalogue, we study the long-term stability of
moon orbits around known exoplanets. We calculate the survival rate which is
the fraction of the investigated cases when the moon survived around the planet
for the full integration time (which is the age of the star, or if not known,
then the age of the Sun).The most important factor determining the long term
survival of an exomoon is the orbital period of the planet. For the majority of
the close-in planets (<10 days orbital periods) there is no stable orbit for
moons. Between 10 and 300 days we find a transition in survival rate from about
zero to 70\%. Our results give a possible explanation to the lack of successful
exomoon discoveries for close-in planets. Tidal instability causes moons to
escape or being tidally disrupted around close-in planets which are mostly
favoured by current detection techniques.
