Background: Aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the clinico-pathological features and the outcome of patients (pts) with late relapsing renal cell carcinoma (LateR-RCC) treated with vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) as first line therapy. Methods: Data were collected from 19 Italian centers involved in the treatment of metastatic RCC. Late relapse was defined as >5 yr after initial radical nephrectomy. MSKCC prognostic categories were assessed before starting first-line treatment with VEGFR-TKI. Overall survival (OS) and progression free-survival (PFS) were estimated with the Kaplan-Meyer method with 95% CI and curves were compared with log-rank test. A Cox-regression model was applied to the data with a univariate and multivariate approach. Variables included in the univariate analysis were gender, age, time from surgery, MSKCC risk-group and targeted therapy employed at first line. Results: A total of 2,490 pts were screened and 269 pts (11%) were identified as LateR-RCC and treated with first-line VEGFR-TKI. Median age was 66 yr (range 29-87). Median time to recurrence was 7.9 yr. MSKCC prognostic category was good in 63% of pts, intermediate in 31% and poor in 6%. First-line therapy consisted of sunitinib in 190 pts (71%), sorafenib in 58 pts (21%) and pazopanib in 21 pts (8%). The median PFS was 20.0 months (95% CI 17.0−25.1) for sunitinib and 14.1 months for both sorafenib (95% CI 11.0−29.0) and pazopanib (95% CI 11.2−NR). At multivariate analysis, only MSKCC prognostic group was an independent prognostic factor for OS (HR: 2.07; 95% CI, 1.52–2.82 p < 0.001) and PFS (HR 2.54; 95% CI, 1.93−3.36 p < 0.001), whereas first line TKI was not significantly associated with OS (HR: 0.94; 95% CI, 0.38–1.82 p = 0.895) and PFS (HR 0.77; 95% CI, 0.43−1.99 p= 0.547). Conclusions: No significant differences were found in terms of OS and PFS in pts with LateR-RCC treated with first-line sorafenib, sunitinib or pazopanib. Our data may be considered in the long-term management of these patients.