Diabetes mellitus is a major cardiovascular risk factor and one of the major causes for morbidity and mortality worldwide. Diabetic complications have not only major impact on the quality of life of diabetic patients, but are also potentially life-threatening. Therefore prevention, diagnosis and therapy of these long-term complications are of high importance. However, diagnosis of the variety of complications from diabetes mellitus remains a diagnostic challenge and usually several diagnostic steps are necessary to diagnose or exclude these complications. In the last years whole body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) including whole body magnetic resonance angiography (WB-MRA) has been introduced for cardiovascular imaging and is now increasingly applied in clinical routine for the workup of patients with cardiovascular disease and for cardiovascular screening. The article summarizes rationales for WB-MRI in diabetes mellitus, technical concepts of disease specific cardiovascular WB-MRI in diabetes mellitus and discusses potential clinical consequences.