The mechanism of interaction of four coumarin derivatives (CDS) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) was studied using spectrofluorometric technique. It was found that the coumarin ring common to all CDS makes major contribution to interaction. Binding affinities could be related to parachor values of CDS. Stem-Volmer plots indicated the presence of static component in the quenching mechanism. Results also showed that both tryptophan residues of protein are accessible to CDS. The high magnitude of rate constant of quenching indicated that the process of energy transfer occurs by intermolecular interaction forces and thus CDS binding site is in close proximity to tryptophan residues of BSA. Binding studies in the presence of the hydrophobic probe, 8-anilino-l-naphthalein-sulfonic acid showed that there is hydrophobic interaction between CDS and the probe and they do not share common sites in BSA. Thermodynamic parameters obtained from data at different temperatures showed that the binding of CDS to BSA involve hydrophobic bonds predominantly. The effects of various metal ions on the binding of CDS with BSA were also investigated.