Summary This meta-analysis revealed that diabetic adults had a twofold greater risk of hip fractures compared with non-diabetic populations, and this association was more pronounced in type 1 diabetes. Introduction The relationship between diabetes mellitus and risk of hip fracture yielded conflicting results. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the association between diabetes mellitus and the risk of hip fractures based on observational studies. Methods We conducted a systematic literature search of PubMed and Embase databases through May 2015. We selected cohort and case–control studies providing at least age-adjusted risk ratio (RR) and corresponding 95 % confidence intervals (CI) of hip fractures among diabetic and non-diabetic subjects. Moreover, we pooled the female-to-male RR of hip fractures from studies that reported gender-specific risk estimate in a single study. Results Twenty-one studies involving 82,293 hip fracture events among 6,995,272 participants were identified. Diabetes mellitus was associated with an increased risk of hip fractures (RR 2.07; 95 % CI 1.83–2.33) in a random effects model. Subgroup analysis indicated that excess risk of hip fracture was more pronounced in type 1 diabetes (RR 5.76; 95 % CI 3.66–9.07) than that in type 2 diabetes (RR 1.34; 95 % CI 1.19–1.51). The pooled female-to-male RR of hip fractures was 1.09 (95 % CI 0.93–1.28). Conclusions Individuals with diabetes mellitus have an excessive risk of hip fractures, and this relationship is more pronounced in type 1 diabetes. The association between diabetes and hip fracture risk is similar in men and women.