We undertook a retrospective analysis to evaluate the C-reactive protein/albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio for its prognostic value in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (CCRCC). The study comprised 406 CCRCC patients undergoing nephrectomy between 2003 and 2012 in our hospital. The correlations among the pretreatment CRP/Alb ratio, clinicopathological parameters, and overall survival (OS) were evaluated. An elevated CRP/Alb ratio was associated with older age at surgery (P=0.007), more advanced TNM stage (P<0.001), more presence of tumor necrosis (P<0.001) and lymphovascular invasion (P<0.001), lower concentration of hemoglobin (P<0.001) and calcium (P=0.005), and shorter OS (P<0.001). The multivariate analysis confirmed that the CRP/Alb ratio independently predicted the OS of patients with CCRCC (P<0.001), the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) (P=0.001) and modified GPS (mGPS) (P=0.019) were independent prognostic factors also. At last, we evaluated the prognostic value of the CRP/Alb ratio compared with the similar inflammation-based prognostic scores GPS and mGPS using the area under the curve (AUC). Although the differences were not statistically significant, the AUC value of the CRP/Alb ratio (continuous, categorical) was higher compared with the GPS and mGPS, except that the AUC value for the CRP/Alb ratio (categorical) at 3 years was lower than that for the GPS. The CRP/Alb ratio could take the place of the GPS and mGPS in terms of predicting prognosis in CCRCC.