Objective: To investigate the correlation between tumor budding and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), further explore the relationship with clinical -pathological features and clinical prognosis. Methods: To collect 40 resected specimens from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma who were admitted in our hospital from 2007 to 2013. They were divided into 2 groups according to different number of tumor buddings by HE staining, which were low tumor buddings (≤5) and high tumor buddings (>5). Expression of Vimentin in specimens was explored by immunohistochemistry. The relationship between tumor budding and EMT and clinical-pathological features was analyzed. Estimation of overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) distributions was performed by Kaplan-Meier method and differences between groups were determined by log-rank tests. Results: Low tumor budding group (n=22) and high tumor budding group (n=18) by HE staining revealed no significant difference between intratumoral bud cells and cells in tumor body. No correlation between tumor budding number and ages and gender of patients were investigated. Statistical analysis revealed that tumor budding was associated with tumor size, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis, clinical stage(P<0.05). In addition, significant association was observed between tumor budding and up-regulation of Vimentin (P=0.001), revealing that tumor budding is associated with EMT of OSCC and morphological feature of EMT. The median overall survival time of two groups was 40.4, 26.5 months respectively (χ2=5.265, P=0.012). The median progression free survival time of two groups was 35.8, 22.1 months respectively (χ2=6.744, P=0.009). Conclusion: Tumor budding, which is associated with EMT, represents worse malignant and invasive cancer cells subpopulation. It could be an independent prognostic factor in OSCC.