Objective To investigate whether vitamin D insufficiency is the risk factor for stroke.Methods We searched PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CNKI, Wanfang Data, and CQVIP with "25-hydroxyvitamin D(25(OH)D)", "vitamin D", and "stroke" as search terms to identify articles published up to January 2013. A meta-analysis was performed using Stata 12.0, and the pooled hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) was calculated.Results A total of 12 studies involving 28824 subjects were included. The meta-analysis showed that 25(OH)D insufficiency (HR=1.53, 95% CI=1.43-1.64) was associated with increased risk of developing stroke (P<0.05).Conclusions Vitamin D insufficiency may be a potential risk factor for stroke, so further studies on vitamin intervention are needed.