Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide, occurs at a relatively high frequency in China. To investigate whether common excision repair cross-complementing rodent repair group 2 (ERCC2) variants (rs3916874 G>C, rs238415 C>G, rs1618536 G>A, rs1799793 G>A, and rsl3181 A>C) were associated with ESCC risk, a case-control study was conducted, including 405 cases with ESCC and 405 age and sex 1:1 matched cancer-free controls. The result showed that rsl3181 AC/CC genotypes was associated with an increased risk of ESCC (OR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.05-2.00), and two ERCC2 haplotypes Grs3916874Crs238415Grs1618536Grs1799793Crsl3181 (Hap5) and Grs3916874Grs238415Ars1618536Grs1799793Crsl3181 (Hap7) were associated with increased risk of ESCC (OR: 2.16, 95 % CI: 1.27-3.57 for Hap5 and OR: 3.72; 95 % CI: 1.89-6.63 for Hap7, respectively), while Grs3916874Grs238415Grs1618536Grs1799793Arsl3181 (Hap4) was associated with decreased risk of ESCC (OR: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.35-0.71). Gene-environment interaction analysis by multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software showed that there was an interaction among rs238415, rs1618536, and family history of cancer with a P value under 0.0001 (OR: 3.23: 95% CI: 2.37-4.40). These results suggested that genetic variations in the ERCC2 gene were associated with risk of ESCC, and there was a significant interaction between gene polymorphisms and family history of cancer in the etiology of ESCC.