ObjectiveTo systematically review the correlation between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the risk of kidney cancer. MethodsPubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, CBM, VIP and CNKI databases were electronically searched to collect cohort studies on the association between T2DM and kidney cancer from inception to August 2021. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis then performed by using Stata 15.0 software. ResultsA total of 17 cohort studies involving 2 003 165 T2DM patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that patients with T2DM had a higher kidney cancer risk than controls (RR=1.51, 95%CI 1.39 to 1.64, P<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that the incidence of kidney cancer in T2DM patients was higher in different gender, region, population, follow-up time, diabetes assessment method and other subgroups. ConclusionsCurrent evidence shows that T2DM is a risk factor for kidney cancer.