Background SARS-CoV is the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which has been associated with outbreaks of SARS in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Beijing of China, and other regions worldwide. SARS-CoV from human has shown some variations but its origin is still unknown. The genotyping and phylogeny of SARS-CoV were analyzed and reported in this paper. Methods Full or partial genomes of 44 SARS-CoV strains were collected from GenBank. The genotype, single nucleotide polymorphism and phylogeny of these SARS-CoV strains were analyzed by molecular biological, bioinformatic and epidemiological methods. Conclusion The results mentioned above suggest that SARS-CoV is responding to host immunological pressures and experiencing variation which provide clues, information and evidence of molecular biology for the clinical pathology, vaccine developing and epidemic investigation.