Apple is a major crop in the Shaanxi province of China. In this area, the decline of apple trees may be due to infection by viruses and/or other pathogens that cause significant reduction in fruit yield and quality. With this study, the presence in Shaanxi was investigated of Apple stem pitting virus (ASPV), one of the economically important disease agents infecting apples world-wide. Fifty leaf samples from declining apple trees of cv. ‘Red Fuji’ were collected from Guanzhong (Shaanxi) in July 2009 and tested for ASPV by DAS-ELISA using a commercial kit (Agdia, USA). Forty samples tested positive for the virus. Total RNA extracted from 10 ELISA-positiv e samples was used in RTPCR with virus-specific primer pair ASPV-CP1 (5’CTCTTGAACCAGCTGATGGC-3’)/ ASPV-CP2 (5’ATAGCCGCCCCGGTTAGGTT-3’) (Jelkmann and Keim-Konrad, 1997). The expected 265 bp fragments were purified, cloned in pMD 18-T vector (TaKaRa, China) and transformed into competent cells of Escherichia coli strain JM109. After PCR and enzyme digestion evaluation, some positive clones were selected and sequenced. The sequences were identical, and deposited in GenBank (accession No. JF895517). Nucleotide BLAST analysis showed 91.9%, 86.8%, 89.0% and 86.8% identity, respectively, with ASPV isolates from Yangling (China) (EU665492), Liaoning (China) (FJ445223), Poland (AF495382) and the Czech Republic (DQ003336). To our knowledge, this is the first report of the occurrence of ASPV in Shaanxi.