Esophageal cancer was the fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in China in 2009. Genetic factors might play an important role in the carcinogenesis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). We conducted a hospital-based case-control study to evaluate ten NAT2 tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the risk of ESCC. Six hundred and twenty-nine ESCC cases and 686 controls were recruited. Their genotypes were determined using the ligation detection reaction method. In the single locus analyses, there was a borderline statistically significant difference in genotype frequencies of NAT2 rs1565684 T>C SNP between the cases and the controls (p = 0.057). The NAT2 rs1565684 CC genotype was associated with a borderline significantly increased risk for ESCC (CC vs. TT: adjusted OR = 1.77, 95% CI = 0.97-3.21, p = 0.063 and CC vs. TT/TC: adjusted OR = 1.68, 95% CI = 0.93-3.04, p = 0.085). The association was evident among older patients and patients who never drunk. After the Bonferroni correction, in all comparison models, NAT2 rs1565684 T>C SNP was not associated with ESCC risk (p>0.05). For the other nine NAT2 SNPs, after Bonferroni correction, in all comparison models, the nine SNPs were also not associated with ESCC risk (p>0.05). Thus, nine NAT2 tagging SNPs were not associated with risk of ESCC. NAT2 rs1565684 T>C SNP might play a slight role in ESCC etiology. Additional, larger studies and tissue-specific biological characterization are required to confirm the current findings.