Background: To evaluate the predictive value at the hepatobiliary phase (HBP) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after gadobenate dimeglumine (Gd-BOPTA) injection for histologic grades of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Materials and Methods: HCC patients who underwent Gd-BOPTA-enhanced MRI were analyzed and divided into four histologic grades of differentiation based on Edmonson-Steiner grade. Besides, HCC tumor differentiations grade I, II and III, IVwere defined as well-differentiated (WD), moderately-differentiated (MD), poorly-differentiated (PD), respectively. The clinical, pathological and imaging features of patients were assessed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was to evaluate the significance between WD/MD HCC and PD HCC using the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), relative intensity ratio (RIR) of T1WI and T2WI (T1RIR, T2RIR), contrast-enhancement ratio in arterial phase (CERA) and contrast-noise-ratio (CNR) in HBP (CNR_hbp). Results: A total of 102 HCC patients were analyzed (grade I,  n=19; grade II, n=30; grade III, n=30; grade IV, n=23). There was no statistical difference regarding to the pathological and clinical features among four grades. There were significant differences in CERA, CNR_hbp, T1RIR, T2RIR and ADC values among the four HCC grades (all P<0.05). Based on ROC curve, comparison of the five quantitative MRI parameters indicated ADC (sensitivity 84.8%, specificity 82.6%, AUC 0.862) and CNR_hbp value (sensitivity 78.5%, specificity 91.3%, AUC 0.916) could significantly distinguish the HCC histological grade. Conclusions: The ADC and/or CNR_hbp value in HBP-MRI after GD-BOPTA injection might be as the significant quantitative parameters to distinguish HCC histological grade.