ABSTRACT: Many studies have reported the association of X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) Arg399Gln, Arg194Trp, Arg280His, -77T>C, and X-ray repair cross-complementing group 3 (XRCC3) T241M polymorphisms with lung cancer risk, but the results remained controversial. Hence, we performed a meta-analysis to investigate the association between lung cancer risk and XRCC1 Arg399Gln (14,156 cases and 16,667 controls from 41 studies), Arg194Trp (7,426 cases and 9,603 controls from 23 studies), Arg280His (6,211 cases and 6,763 controls from 16 studies), -77T>C (2,487 cases and 2,576 controls from 5 studies), and XRCC3 T241M (8,560 cases and 11,557 controls from 19 studies) in different inheritance models. We found that -77T>C polymorphism was associated with increased lung cancer risk (dominant model: odds ration [OR]?=?1.45, 95% confidence interval [CI]?=?1.27-1.66, recessive model: OR?=?1.73, 95% CI?=?1.14-2.62, additive model: OR?=?1.91, 95% CI?=?1.24-1.94) when all the eligible studies were pooled into the meta-analysis. In the stratified and sensitive analyses, significantly decreased lung cancer risk was observed in overall analysis (dominant model: OR?=?0.83, 95% CI?=?0.78-0.89; recessive model: OR?=?0.90, 95% CI?=?0.81-1.00; additive model: OR?=?0.82, 95% CI?=?0.74-0.92), Caucasians (dominant model: OR?=?0.82, 95% CI?=?0.76-0.87; recessive model: OR?=?0.89, 95% CI?=?0.80-0.99; additive model: OR?=?0.81, 95% CI?=?0.73-0.91), and hospital-based controls (dominant model: OR?=?0.81, 95% CI?=?0.76-0.88; recessive model: OR?=?0.89, 95% CI?=?0.79-1.00; additive model: OR?=?0.80, 95% CI?=?0.71-0.90) for XRCC3 T241M. In conclusion, this meta-analysis indicates that XRCC1 -77T>C shows an increased lung cancer risk and XRCC3 T241M polymorphism is associated with decreased lung cancer risk, especially in Caucasians.