The prognostic value of survivin for survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial. The authors performed a meta-analysis of the literatures in order to clarify its impact. Published studies were identified using an electronic search in order to aggregate the available survival results. To be eligible, a study had to have dealt with survivin assessment in NSCLC patients on the primary site and have analyzed survival according to survivin expression. There were 10 eligible studies and data from eight studies where non-location specific immunohistochemistry (IHC) definition system, in situ hybridization (ISH) and RT-PCR used were combined to present the impact of survivin on overall survival (OS) of NSCLC. The level of survivin expression correlated with the OS of NSCLC patients significant (RR 1.88, 95% CI 1.31-2.70, P=0.0006). Data of seven studies were combined to demonstrate that the level of survivin correlated with the OS of NSCLC patients who had received radical surgeries (RR 1.79, 95% CI 1.45-2.20, P<0.00001). Data from three studies were combined to find that the level of nuclear survivin did not have impact on OS of NSCLC patients (RR 1.58, 95% CI 0.87-2.85, P=0.13). Positive-survivin expression might be a prognostic factor for NSCLC patients, nuclear survivin positivity could not work as a prognostic factor for NSCLC patients based on current clinical data. Larger clinical trails with widely accepted assessment methods are necessary to define the precise prognostic significance for survivin in NSCLC patients.