Objective: To investigate the expression of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in thyroid papillary carcinoma (PTC) and its correlation with clinicopathologic factors and recurrence of PTC. Methods: Immunohistochemistry EnVision staining was conducted retrospectively to evaluate the expression of PD-L1 in thyroid tumors and corresponding non-tumor tissues. Results: PD-L1 expression was positive in 30.80% PTC, significantly higher than the corresponding non-tumor thyroid tissues 7.98% (P<0.05). PD-L1 expression in tall cell variant (75.00%) increased significantly compared with the classic ones (31.60%) at a 1% threshold. When a 50% threshold was applied, the positivity of PD-L1 was also significantly lower in follicular variant (3.13%) than that in classic ones (11.49%). At a 50% threshold, the positivity of PD-L1 in PTC showed uptrend with the increase of the largest diameter of the tumor, while that at a 50% threshold, there was no significant correlation. Either at a 1% threshold or at a 1% threshold, there was significant correlation between PD-L1 expression and tumor multifocality, metastasis. The result of Kaplan–Meier method and log-rank test showed that the recurrence of PTC was significantly associated with the PD-L1 expression, tumor diameter, lymph node metastasis, higher TNM stage and tumor multifocality. PD-L1 expression, tumor diameter >4 cm and tumor multifocality were independent predictor of recurrence in multivariate Cox regression analysis after adjusting to other factors. Conclusion: PD-L1 is highly expressed in PTC and could predict the prognosis and recurrence. The number of tumor-positive cells in PTC >50% may be important to evaluate the prognosis. The inhibition of PD-L1 may be as a potential strategy for the treatment of advanced PTC with high expression of PD-L1.