Abstract: Objective To explore the association of tumor budding with the clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal cancer, and its effects on the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients, so as to provide a new direction for clinical diagnosis, treatment and prognosis evaluation of colorectal cancer. Methods A total of 285 colorectal cancer patients who were admitted into Department of Gastroenterology, the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University from January 2015 to December 2015 and not received radiotherapy and chemotherapy were enrolled. According to the grades of tumor budding, the patients were divided into two groups: a low budding group and high a budding group. The association of tumor budding with the clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal cancer was analyzed. Meanwhile, the relationship between tumor budding and tumor prognosis was analyzed after follow-up visits. Results The proportion of patients with low histological grade, invasion type, high depth of invasion and recurrence in the high tumor budding group was significantly higher than that in the low tumor budding group (P<0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that tumor budding was an independent risk factor for the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients (HR=2.663, 95%CI:1.534-3.878, P<0.001). Conclusions Tumor budding is associated with the invasion indicators of colorectal cancer. Tumor budding is an important risk factor for the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients.