Apache commons csv skip lines

Use FileReader.readLine() before starting the for-loop.

Your example:

private void parse() throws Exception {
  FileReader reader = new FileReader("example.csv");
  reader.readLine(); // Read the first/current line.

  Iterable <CSVRecord> records = CSVFormat.EXCEL.withQuote('"').withDelimiter(';').parse(reader);
  for (CSVRecord csvRecord: records) {
    // do something
  }
}

There is no built-in facility to skip an unknown number of lines.

If you want to skip only the first line (the header line), you can call withSkipHeaderRecord() while building the parser.

A more general solution would be to call next() on the iterator:

Iterable<CSVRecord> parser = CSVFormat.DEFAULT.parse(new FileReader("example.csv"));
Iterator<CSVRecord> iterator = parser.iterator();

for (int i = 0; i < amountToSkip; i++) {
    if (iterator.hasNext()) {
        iterator.next();
    }
}

while (iterator.hasNext()) {
    CSVRecord record = iterator.next();
    System.out.println(record);
}