Purpose: To probe the feasibility and characteristics of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) in different subtypes of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Methods: During the period from March 2015 to June 2016, 44 patients with pathologic confirmation of RCC were involved, with subtypes of clear cell RCC (CCRCC) (33 patients), chromophobic RCC (CRCC) (7 patients) and papillary RCC (PRCC) ( 4 patients). All the patients underwent DKI scan with a 3.0-T MR scanner (3 b-values: 0, 500, 1000s/mm2, 30 diffusion directions, acquired in the axial plane). Kurtosis metrics including mean kurtosis (MK), axial kurtosis (Ka) and radial kurtosis (Kr) were measured for the renal lesions and contralateral uninvolved renal parenchyma. Statistical comparisons with metrics of RCC subtypes were performed with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test while data of RCC subtypes were also compared with those of contralateral renal parenchyma using paired- t test. The intra- and inter-observer agreements of all metrics were also evaluated by using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman method. Results: The range of mean differences of kurtosis metrics between two observers and between two measurements for one observer were 0.021 - 0.056 based on the Bland-Altman plot. The inter- and intra-observer ICCs of all metrics were good, ranging from 0.801 to 0.979. There were significant differences between each RCC subtypes and contralateral renal parenchyma (p<0.05). Kurtosis metrics among the 3 subtypes of RCC were significantly different with p values of 0.031, 0.018 and 0.024 for MK, Ka and Kr values respectively. MK, Ka and Kr values of CRCC were all significantly higher than those of CCRCC and PRCC. Conclusion: DKI showed good reproducibility in characterization of renal cell carcinoma. Our research, although clearly preliminary with small number, suggest a possible role for DKI in differentiating CRCC from CCRCC and PRCC.