In recent years, the roles of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in the biogenesis and clinical application have gradually garnered much interest in the field of cancer research. However, high-quality studies evaluating the roles of circRNAs in clinicopathological feature and clinical application of lung cancer are still unrevealed. Herein, we aimed to elucidate the functions of circRNAs in the association with prognosis, diagnosis and clinicopathology in lung cancer. Comprehensive and reasonable search strategies were used in four databases up to Nov. 24th 2019. A total of 50 studies with 3815 patients were incorporated into our meta-analysis, in which 42 focused on clinical characteristics, 10 related with diagnosis (16 items were eligible), and 31 were aimed at prognosis. In terms of clinical characteristics, both odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were shown that circRNAs were significantly associated with TNM, tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, distal metastasis and tumor size in lung cancer. For diagnosis, both upregulated and downregulated circRNAs distinguished patients with lung cancer from healthy people with pooled sensitivity (Sen), specificity (Spe) and area under curve (AUC), of which the values were 0.78, 0.76 and 0.81 respectively. In the section of prognosis, circRNAs can better predict the survival time of patients with lung cancer (overall survival, OS: HR=0.46, 95%Cl: 0.33–0.65 in downregulated circRNAs; HR=2.23, 95%CI :1.97-2.53 in upregulated circRNAs). In summary, the results presented here suggested that circRNAs were the potent cancer biomarkers in clinicopathology, diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer patients, which deserve further application in clinical practice.