Objective To study the clinical effect of famitinib malate for treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Methods Nine mRCC patients treated with famitinib malate in our center completed their follow-up from October 2011 to June 2015. The patients received famitinib malate at an initial dose of 25 mg, which was given orally before breakfast once a day. One cycle consisted of 42 days. The antitumor efficacy and the adverse event (AE) were observed. Results After treatment with famitinib for 3 cycles, the objective response rate (ORR) reached 66.7% (6/9) for the patients, with partial remission (PR) found in 6 patients, stable disease (SD) in 2 patients and progressive disease (PD) in 1.The median follow-up time was 29 months (15-40 months) in our study and the median progression free survival (PFS) was 16.5 months (4.5-38.0 months). The most common treatment-related AE of famitinib malate was proteinura, and other AEs were similar to those of sunitinib. Six patients had reduction and interruption as appropriate due to AEs, and 2 patients stopped the treatment due to intolerable proteinuria. Conclusion Famitinib malate has a good antitumor activity upon mRCC, and its adverse reaction is controllable, making it a promising molecule-targeted drug for clinical application.