Background The risk of cardiovascular disease occurrence and death in inflammatory bowel disease patients is still unclear. Design Meta-analysis. Methods Pertinent studies were identified by searching articles in PubMed and Web of Knowledge to December 2017 and reviewing the reference lists of the retrieved articles. We used the fixed-effect model to pool the study-specific estimates when there was no indication of heterogeneity; otherwise, the random-effect model was used. Results A total of 27 articles was included, of which 11 studies reported the risk of cardiovascular disease incidence and 16 studies reported the risk of cardiovascular disease death. The pooled relative risks were 1.25 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08, 1.44), 1.17 (95% CI: 1.07, 1.27) and 1.12 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.21) for cerebrovascular disease, coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction, respectively. In particular, the pooled relative risk was much higher in females. The pooled standardized mortality ratios were 1.01 (95% CI: 0.90, 1.14) for Crohn's disease patients and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.86, 1.01) for ulcerative colitis patients with low heterogeneity across studies. No publication bias was detected. Conclusions There was a positive association between inflammatory bowel disease and higher risk of cardiovascular disease incidence, particularly in females. Such an association was not observed for cardiovascular disease mortality.