Abstract It has been found that fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGF‐FGFR) signaling can regulate the expression of adipocyte differentiation genes. FGF 9 is one of the members of FGFs that mainly binds receptors FGFR 2 and FGFR 3. FGF 9 is highly expressed in the adipose tissue of humans and mice, but there are few reports on the role of FGF 9 in goat intramuscular adipocyte differentiation. Therefore, this study explored the effect of FGF 9 on adipocyte differentiation through cell culture, interference, and overexpression. The expression of receptors FGFR 1– FGFR 4 in adipocyte differentiation and their effects on differentiation were detected to screen receptor gene of FGF 9. Finally, the interaction between FGF 9 and the receptor was tested by cotransfection. Our results showed that FGF 9 interacts with FGFR 2 to inhibit goat intramuscular adipocyte differentiation by regulating peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor gamma ( PPAR γ) and preadipocyte factor 1 ( Pref 1), which is a data support for subsequent pathway research.