Objective To investigate the utilization of community health services for residents in Shanghai, and analyse the influential factors. Methods Cluster random sampling was adopted to enroll residents in Jing'an District, Changning District, Pudong New Area and Baoshan District of Shanghai to investigate the utilization of community health services, and self-designed questionnaires were recovered for descriptive statistics and influential factor analysis. Results A total of 3 187 out of 3 600 questionnaires were recovered, with the effective rate of 88.53%. The comprehensive utilization rate of community health services for residents in Shanghai was 80.9%. The females, elderly, retirees, those with low education level, low income, spouse loss, medical insurance or social insurance, and those who served in state-owned enterprises or collective enterprises had higher utilization rates of community health services. Medical treatment and medicine purchase were the items of services most frequently used (62.7% and 21.7%, respectively), while the utilization rates of health protection, health education, health examination and rehabilitation were less than 20%. Conclusion Comprehensive utilization of community health services is favorable for residents in Shanghai, while there are some items of services with less utilization. Age, education background and income are major influential factors for utilization of community health services.