In this study, the overall performance and the effect of the tip leakage flow of the centrifugal compressor with a refrigerant HFC-l34a were numerically studied using CFX-TASCflow. To study the effect of the tip leakage flow, the numerical study of the overall performance of HFC-l34a centrifugal compressor with a cascade diffuser was preceded and compared with the experimental result. Six different tip clearances were used to consider the influence of the tip clearance on the performance. The tip leakage flow was illustrated for qualitative discussion. The results obtained in this study can be applied to the determination of the cold clearance.