Polymorphisms in DNA repair genes are good candidates for modifying cancer risk. ERCC2/XPD, a gene involved in nucleotide excision repair and basal transcription, may influence individual DNA repair capacity, particularly of bulky adducts. This is implicated in cancer susceptibility. To detect the association between ERCC2/XPD Arg156Arg and susceptibility to breast cancer in a Chinese population, we conducted a hospital-based case-control study consisting of 129 patients with breast cancer and 205 controls matched by age, gender, and ethnicity. PCR-RFLP was used for genotyping. No associations were found between ERCC2/XPD Arg156Arg and risk of breast cancer (AA/AC versus CC: OR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.49-1.28, P = 0.33; AA versus CC: OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.49-1.63, P = 0.72; AC versus CC: OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.44-1.24, P = 0.25). Breast cancer cases with the variant AA genotype were marginally younger (mean age 45 years) than cases with the wild CC genotype (mean age 50 years) (P = 0.05). There were no differences in risk estimates in relation to menopause and occurrence of breast cancer. Our findings do not suggest that ERCC2/XPD Arg156Arg contributes to breast cancer susceptibility in a Chinese population.