We examined the associations of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in three candidate hypertension genes, alpha-adducin (ADD1/G460W), beta2-adrenergic receptor (ADRB2/Arg16Gly and Gln27Glu) and G-protein beta3 subunit (GNB3/C825T), with retinal arteriolar calibre (an intermediate marker of chronic hypertension) and venular calibre. Data in 1842 participants (1554 whites and 288 African Americans) aged 69-96 years from the Cardiovascular Health Study with genotype and retinal vascular calibre data were included. A computer-assisted method was used to measure retinal vascular calibre. We analysed four SNPs and multilocus interaction for three genes. All SNPs were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in whites and African Americans. The study had sufficient power to detect 0.5% of the total variance of retinal vascular calibre contributed by each SNP in the total population, except for the GNB3 gene variant. No significant associations between these SNPs in the genes studied and mean retinal arteriolar and venular calibre were found in single-gene or multilocus analysis (for example, age-, gender-, race-adjusted mean retinal arteriolar calibre was similar between participants who were ADD1/460W homozygotes and ADD1/G allele carriers, 166.2 vs 167.7 microm). In conclusion, this study found no evidence of an association of SNPs in candidate hypertension genes studied here with retinal vascular calibre.