Objective To investigate the correlation between serum level of visfatin and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods Impaired glucose regulation (IGR) group consisted of 40 patients,T2DM group consisted of 106 patients, while control group consisted of 86 subjects. The serum visfatin levels of all groups were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Fasting serum visfatin levels in IGR group and T2DM group were significantly higher than those in control group [(19.93 ±6.89) μg/L and (29.53 ± 11.33) μg/L vs. (16.12 ± 5.24) μ g/L, P ＜ 0.01]. Fasting serum visfatin levels positively correlated with waist-to-hipratio (WHR) (r = 0.161, P ＜ 0.05); significantly positively correlated with triacylglycerol (TG), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c),fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting insulin (FINS), lg Homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR) (r = 0.189,0.266,0.643,0.574,0.285,0.526,P ＜ 0.01), and significantly negatively correlated with high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C)(r =-0.377,P ＜0.01). When visfatin was analyzed as a dependent variable in multiple linear regression, HbA1c (β = 0.512, P = 0.000), lg HOMA-IR (β= 0.172, P = 0.026), WHR (β = 0.119, P = 0.036) were into the equation. Conclusion Visfatin may be involved in glucose and lipid metabolism regulation, and closely related with insulin resistance; visfatin may be a risk factor for T2DM.