•Intracerebral haemorrhage is associated with high morbidity and mortality.•There is no established biomarker to predict risk of intracerebral haemorrhage.•Factor XII has been suggested to predict risk of future intracerebral haemorrhage.•We found no association between factor XII and risk of intracerebral haemorrhage. In a previous pilot study, we found an association between high factor XII levels and risk of haemorrhagic stroke suggesting that factor XII is a risk marker for intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). The aim of this study was to further investigate the association between factor XII and risk of ICH in a larger population. This study was conducted as a prospective nested case-referent study. All participants underwent a health examination and blood sampling for factor XII analysis at baseline. Cases were defined as participants who were diagnosed with a first-ever ICH between 1985 and 2000. Two referents were matched to each case. We identified 70 individuals with first-ever ICH and 137 matched referents who had undergone a health examination and donated blood samples before the ICH event. The mean age was 54 years, and 33% were women. The median time-to-event was 3.5 years (range 0.04 to 10.2 years). Conditional logistic regression showed no association between factor XII and risk of ICH, (odds ratio 1.06 per SD; 95% confidence interval: 0.57–1.97 in a multivariable model). A previous finding of an association between high concentration of factor XII and risk of ICH could not be replicated in this larger study.