Background: Palliative care (PC) offers various benefits for patient with cancer that include, but are not limited to, decrease in disease-specific symptoms and improvement in functional status. Several oncological guidelines have adopted early integration of PC into oncologic care to improve quality of life among patients with advanced malignancies. However, PC utilization patterns and factors associated with its use in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remain poorly understood. Methods: Using the National Cancer Database (NCDB), we abstracted patients with Stage III and IV RCC from 2004-2014 and evaluated PC utilization amongst this cohort. Socioeconomic and clinical factors were compared for patient receiving and not receiving PC for advanced RCC. Multivariable logistic regression identified factors that were associated with receipt of PC among the overall cohort and treatment-based cohorts. Results: Among 20,122 and 42,014 patients with Stage III and IV RCC, 329 and 9,317 patients received PC, respectively. From 2004 to 2014, PC utilization was stable at ̃1% for Stage III RCC and minimally increased from 17% to 20% for Stage IV RCC. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that increased comorbidities, insurance status, higher education status, facility location, care at a comprehensive cancer program or integrated network, sarcomatoid histology, and prior treatments significantly increased likelihood of palliative care utilization. We uncover socioeconomic and clinical factors that are associated with receipt of palliative care use in a treatment-specific manner. Conclusions: While PC utilization has minimally increased for Stage IV RCC, there are several demographic, socioeconomic, and clinical factors that predict PC use, especially in a treatment-specific manner, among patients with advanced RCC. Taken together, this suggests the need for more equitable and systematic use of PC among patients with advanced RCC.