Objective To study the role of βcatenin protein in the carcinogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods Immunohistochemical method combined with tissue microarrays were used for detecting the expression and localization of βcatenin protein in nasopharyngeal tissue with different pathological morphology. Results Low positive percentage of of βcatenin protein expression in cell membrane of NPC (19.0%) and high expression of βcatenin protein in the cytoplasm/ nucleus of NPC (71.3%) were detected. The aberrant positive percentage of cytoplasm/ nucleus of βcatenin expression in the NPC was significantly higher than those in atypically hyperplastic nasopharyngeal epithelium (P<0.01), simply hyperplastic nasopharyngeal epithelium (P<0.01) and normal nasopharyngeal epitheliun (P<0.01), respetively. Expression of βcatenin protein in the cytoplasm/nucleus of keratinizing nasopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma was significantly lower than that in the undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma and no keratinizing nasopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (P<0.01). The aberrant expression of cytoplasm/ nucleus of βcatenin protein in clinical Ⅲ and Ⅳstaged NPC and NPC with lymph node metastasis was evidently higher than that in Ⅰ and Ⅱstaged NPC (P<0.01) and that without lymph node metastasis (P<0.01). Conclusion The aberrant expression of β-catenin protein in the cytoplasm/nucleus of NPC maybe play an important role in the carcinogenesis, invasion, metastasis and development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The cytoplasm/nucleus positive expression of βcatenin might be used as a molecular marker to predict clinical progress and invasive metastasis of NPC.