Recent studies have reported inconsistent results on the association between sleep duration and the risk of fatty liver disease (FLD). Thus, we quantitatively evaluated this association by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis, based on a comprehensive electronic search in databases of PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, ClinicalTrials.gov, Wanfangdata and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (updated to April 2016). Multivariate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were extracted and pooled by using a random-effects model. Eight eligible studies involving 97,371 participants were included. We found that neither short nor long sleep duration was significantly related with FLD risk. For short sleep duration, the pooled OR was 1.17 (95% CI = 0.98-1.38), and for long sleep duration, the pooled OR was 1.01 (95% CI = 0.72-1.41). Subgroup analyses by sex, outcome, and exposure reference also did not identify any effect of sleep duration on FLD onset. In summary, our findings suggested that short or long sleep duration was not significantly associated with FLD risk. Further cohort studies with refined designs are still warranted to validate our results.