Abstract: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in China. Surgery is the most important way to treat HCC currently. The high recurrence rate after hepatectomy is the most important reason to affect its prognosis, and it is also the key clinical problem to be solved. According to the recurrence time, the recurrence can be divided into early recurrence and late recurrence. The prognosis of patients with early recurrence is worse than that of patients with late recurrence. Therefore, it is very important for surgical decision-making to identify the two kinds of recurrence. This article reviews the research progress of early recurrence cut-off time of hepatocellular carcinoma after radical hepatectomy.