Objective: To investigate the clinicopathological risk factors for fatal recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in orthotopic liver transplant recipients in the first year. Methods: From April 2002 to October 2005, 303 recipients who received orthotopic liver transplantation for HCC were reviewed. Of These patients, those who demonstrated diffuse intra-hepatic or multiple systemic recurrent lesions and died within 1 y after surgery were investigated (fatal recurrence group, 48 cases). The remaining patients were designated as the control group, and the two groups were compared for clinicopathologic risk factors by logistic regression analysis. Results: Among the 303 patients reviewed, 48 patients were enrolled in the fatal recurrence group (15.84%). Multivariate analysis between the fatal recurrence group and control group showed that the presence of vascular invasion, tumor size greater than 6.5 cm, and pre-operative serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level greater than 1000 μg/L were the risk factors in the fatal recurrence group. 85.71% of the patients who had all the three risk factors, 37.84% of those who had two risk factors, 13.64% of those who had one risk factors, and 6.71% of those who had none risk factors died because of recurrence within 1 y after transplantation. Conclusion: Three distinct risk factors attributed to fatal recurrence of liver transplant recipients for HCC are vascular invasion, tumor size ≥6.5 cm, and pre-operative serum AFP level ≥1000 μg/L. The high risk HCC patients with two or more risk factors should not to be the candidates for liver transplantation.