Background Kidneys obtained from deceased donors increase the incidence of delayed graft function (DGF) after renal transplantation. Here we investigated the influence of the risk factors of donors with DGF, and developed a donor risk scoring system for DGF prediction. Methods This retrospective study was conducted in 1807 deceased kidney donors and 3599 recipients who received donor kidneys via transplants in 29 centers in China. We quantified DGF associations with donor clinical characteristics. A donor risk scoring system was developed and validated using an independent sample set. Results The incidence of DGF from donors was 19.0%. Six of the donor characteristics analyzed, i.e., age, cause of death, history of hypertension, terminal serum creatinine, persistence of hypotension, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) time were risk factors for DGF. A 49-point scoring system of donor risk was established for DGF prediction and exhibited a superior degree of discrimination. External validation of DGF prediction revealed area under the receiver-operating characteristic (AUC) curves of 0.7552. Conclusions Our study determined the deceased donor risk factors related to DGF after renal transplantation pertinent to the Chinese cohort. The scoring system developed here had superior diagnostic significance and consistency and can be used by clinicians to make evidence-based decisions on the quality of kidneys from deceased donors and guide renal transplantation therapy.