Objective  To investigate the availability of Raman spectroscopy for distinguishing renal clear-cell carcinoma (RCC) .Methods   There were 27 RCC, 5 oncocytoma and 6 angiomyolipoma were collected in our hospital from June 2016 to October 2016,and then analyzed by Raman spectroscopy. Discriminant Analysis (DA) was applied to evaluate the accuracy of Raman to classify RCC and benign tumors.Results  A total of 201 Raman spectra were eventually acquired, of which 81 cases were RCC, 15 cases were oncocytoma, 18 cases were angiomyolipoma, and 87 cases were distal rena parenchyma. Raman was able to recognize RCC and oncocytoma with an accuracy of 94.20%, and distinguish RCC with angiomyolipoma with an accuracy of 87.04%. Besides, the distal renal parenchyma could also be separated from RCC and benign renal tumors with an accuracy of 93.42% and 85.74%, respectively. Conclusions   Raman can accurately distinguish RCC and may serve as a useful tool in the future for pre-operative diagnosis of renal tumor. 