Surgical resection is the only curative treatment for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The risk of local failure is low when total resection is performed. Although adjuvant treatment had no proven efficacy it may be added in case of high-grade, locally advanced lesions, or lymph node metastasis, or positive surgical margins since the risk of loco-regional or distant failure is high. Radiotherapy (RT) can be applied with neoadjuvant (preoperative), adjuvant (postoperative), or palliative intent in RCC. Historically, several retrospective series suggested a clinical benefit to adjuvant radiation therapy. However one must be careful when interpreting these results due to the predated modern staging, surgery, and radiation-therapy technologies used, variabilities in patient selection and treatment modalities. Some authors described theoretic benefits of preoperative radiation therapy, such as tumor shrinkage, increased resectability, and fewer distant metastases because of lessened intraoperative seeding. Since there are a few prospective randomized studies, the role of preoperative or postoperative RT in RCC is controversial.