Objective To investigate the relationship between serum RBP4 concentrations and Diabetic nephropathy. Methods The database of PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, CNKI, CBM and VIP were searched by using retinol-binding protein (RBP4) and diabetic nephropathy (DN) as key words. The meta-analysis was assessed by Review manager 5.0. Heterogeneity analysis and publication bias were reflected with I2 test and funnel plots, respectively. Results 725 cases were chosen as study samples. There was a correlation between retinol-binding protein concentrations and diabetic nephropathy (WMD=20.47, 95%CI). The retinol-binding protein concentrations in type 2 diabetes patients with nephropathy were significantly higher than that of controls (P＜0.001). Conclusions: There is significant association between the retinol-binding protein concentrations and diabetic nephropathy.