BACKGROUND We investigated the prognostic role of preoperative chemotherapy in patients who underwent hepatectomy for liver-limited metastasis (LLM) from gastric cancer (GC). METHODS A retrospective analysis was conducted for 52 consecutive patients who underwent macroscopically complete (R0 or R1) resection for synchronous or metachronous LLM from GC. RESULTS Of the 52 patients, 18 (35%) received preoperative chemotherapy (PC group), while 34 (65%) underwent upfront surgery (US group). The PC group had a significantly longer overall survival than the US group (cumulative 5-year OS rate: 47.6% vs. 24.8%, p = 0.041). Multivariate analysis of OS revealed that preoperative chemotherapy was an independent favorable prognostic factor (hazard ratio: 0.445, p = 0.036). Patients showing a partial response to preoperative chemotherapy on RECIST had an improved OS compared with those exhibiting stable or progressive disease after preoperative chemotherapy and with US (p = 0.025), even among those with solitary LLM (p = 0.062) and multiple LLM (p = 0.026). At recurrence after hepatectomy for LLM, the PC group had a significantly higher incidence of solitary tumors than the US group (p = 0.043) and had a higher chance to undergo surgical resection for recurrent sites (p = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS Preoperative chemotherapy can be recommended for patients with LLM from GC. The evaluation of the efficacy of preoperative chemotherapy offers additional information to determine the surgical indication for LLM.