Objective To evaluate the expression of chaperonin containing TCP1 subunit 6A (CCT6A) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissue, and explore its correlation with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of NSCLC patients. Methods A total of 160 NSCLC patients who underwent surgical resection were retrospectively enrolled, and their clinicopathological data and follow-up information were collected. The surgical resection samples of all patients (including 160 cases of cancer tissue samples and 50 cases of adjacent tissue samples) were collected, and the expression of CCT6A was detected by immunohistochemistry. The expression of CCT6A in cancer tissue of NSCLC patients with different clinicopathological characteristics was compared. The patients were divided into low expression group (n＝70) and high expression group (n＝90) according to the expression level of CCT6A. The relationship between the expression of CCT6A and prognosis was discussed by survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis. Results CCT6A was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm and cell membrane, and its expression level in the cancer tissue was significantly higher than that in the adjacent tissue (4.8±2.9 vs 2.5±1.7, P＜0.01). The expression level of CCT6A was not correlated with clinicopathological characteristics of patients, such as age, gender, smoking, drinking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, tumor size, histological type, or TNM stage (all P＞0.05). However, the expression levels of CCT6A in cancer tissue of patients with high Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) score, poor tumor differentiation, or lymph node metastasis were significantly higher than those of patients with low ECOG PS score, good tumor differentiation, or no lymph node metastasis (all P＜0.05). In addition, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were significantly shorter in patients with high CCT6A expression in cancer tissue than in patients with low CCT6A expression (both P＜0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that high expression of CCT6A in cancer tissue was an independent predictor of poor DFS (P＝0.001), but not an independent predictor of OS. Conclusion CCT6A is highly expressed in NSCLC tissue, and its high expression is associated with poor tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, and high ECOG PS score in NSCLC patients, and can be used to predict the risk of recurrence.