The impact of chronic kidney disease (CKD) on the outcome of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is uncertain. We aimed to evaluate the effect of renal dysfunction (defined by ICD-9-CM codification) on in-hospital mortality for PE. We considered all cases of PE (first event) recorded in the database of hospital admissions for the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy, from 1999 to 2009. The inclusion criterion was the presence, as a main discharge diagnosis, of acute PE codes according to ICD-9-CM. Diagnoses of immobilization, dementia, sepsis, skeletal fractures, hypertension, heart failure, myocardial infarction, diabetes mellitus, peripheral vascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic pulmonary disease, pneumonia, malignancy, CKD and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) were also considered to evaluate comorbidity. The outcome was in-hospital mortality for PE, and multivariate logistic regression analyses was performed. We considered 24,690 cases of first episode of PE. In-hospital mortality for PE was not different in patients without renal dysfunction, with CKD, or ESRD (23.6 vs. 24 vs. 18 % p = ns). In-hospital mortality for PE was independently associated with age (OR 1.045, 95 % CI 1.042-1.048, p < 0.001), female sex (OR 1.322, 95 % CI 1.242-1.406, p < 0.001), hypertension (OR 1.096, 95 % CI 1.019-1.178, p = 0.013), diabetes mellitus (OR 1.120, 95 % CI 1.001-1.253, p = 0.049), dementia (OR 1.171, 95 % CI 1.020-1.346, p = 0.025), peripheral vascular disease (OR 1.349, 95 % CI 1.057-1.720, p = 0.016) and malignancy (OR 1.065, 95 % CI 1.016-1.116, p = 0.008). Age and comorbidity are associated with in-hospital mortality for PE, whereas CKD does not appear to be an independent predictor of adverse outcomes in patients hospitalized for PE.