Significant numbers of renal transplants are carried out from live donors every year. But live donor nephrectomy carries the risk of some short and long-term morbidity and even mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the short-term complications of nephrectomy in live kidney donors at our center. Medical records of 1665 consecutive donor nephrectomies were performed from April 1986 to April 2004 were reviewed .In this retrospective study 1308 donors were male (78.6%) and 359 (21.4%) female. Mean age at the time of kidney donation was 30.67 ± 8.3 years. 436 (26.2%) were living related and 1064 (73.7%) living unrelated donors. Surgical approach was midline trans-abdominal nephrectomy in 1657 and laparoscopic live donor nephrectomy in 8 cases. 1485(89.2%) of kidneys had single renal artery. Left kidney nephrectomy was performed in 1522 (91.4%). The mean post-surgical hospitalization was 5.8 days (range: 1–29 days). One donor died from surgical complications (0.06%). Reoperation was necessary in 16 donors (0.96%) due to internal bleeding in 7, wound infection and dehiscence in 5, drain extraction in 3 and foreign body in one case. Rate of complications not requiring reoperation was 8.7% .The most prevalent medical complications were fever in 50 donors followed by blood loss requiring transfusion in 26,gastrointestinal (GI) problem in 27, urinary tract infection in 19, GI bleeding in 7, wound infection in 5 and hemolysis, chylous ascites and arrhythmia each in one case. The readmission rate was 0.14 %. Two of 24 readmitted donors required reoperation. None of laparoscopic live donor nephrectomies were complicated. No correlation was found between complicated nephrectomies and left vs. right nephrectomy, gender, related vs. unrelated donors, age, date of transplantation and number of renal arteries. We conclude that live kidney donation carries some risk of mortality and morbidity. The risk of kidney donation should be clearly explained to each kidney donor.