Objective To investigate the occurrence of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) after different types of neurosurgical operations in a tertiary first-class hospital, and provide ideas and basis for the monitoring, prevention and control of neurosurgery-related HAI. Methods Neurosurgery-related information of patients in department of neurosurgery of this hospital from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018 were analyzed retrospectively. Results A total of 6 688 neurosurgical patients were investigated, incidence of HAI was 8.22%, incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) was the highest (5.40%), followed by postoperative pneumonia (POP, 1.91%). There were significant differences in the incidence of HAI, SSI, POP, other site infection and organ cavity infection among diffe-rent types of operations (all P<0.05), after intracranial tumor resection and intracranial vascular intervention, incidence of HAI (11.35% and 8.46% respectively) and organ cavity infection (7.39% and 4.01% respectively) were higher. There were significant differences in the incidence of HAI, SSI, POP, and organ cavity infection among different types of intracranial tumor resection (all P<0.05), after neuroepithelial tumors and craniopharyngioma operation, incidence of HAI (23.19% and 20.79% respectively) and organ cavity infection (17.27% and 12.87% respectively) were higher. 74 strains of pathogens were isolated from cerebrospinal fluid, including 54 strains of Gram-positive bacteria, 19 strains of Gram-negative bacteria and 1 strain of fungus. Conclusion Incidence of HAI in different types of neurosurgical operation is quite different, in the case of limited resources, the monitoring of HAI needs to be focused on the surgical types with high incidence of HAI.