The purpose of this study was to evaluate the associations of CYP1A1 genetic polymorphisms with the risk of developing esophageal cancer (EC). A case-control study was carried out in a Chinese population in which 157 hospital based EC cases and 157 population based healthy controls with 1:1 match by age and sex were included. PCR based restriction fragment length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLP) were used to detect genotypes in case and control groups. For the CYP1A1 Ile/Val polymorphism, comparing with wild genotype Ile/Ile, both the heterozygote genotype Ile/Val and the combined variant genotype Ile/Val+Val/Val increased the risk of esophageal cancer (OR: 2.05, 95%CI: 1.19-3.54, OR: 1.86, 95%CI: 1.11-3.12). No significant association was found between the CYP1A1 MspI polymorphism and EC. According to analysis of combined genotypes, the TC/AG combined genotype which contained both variant alleles of these two polymorphisms increased the risk of developing EC (OR: 2.12, 95%CI: 1.16-3.85). Our results suggested that genetic polymorphisms of CYP1A1 may increase the susceptibility to EC.