A 60-day feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of dietary phospholipid (PL) from soybean lecithin on growth performance, liver fatty acid composition, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) gene expression levels and antioxidant responses of blunt snout bream fingerlings. Fish (average initial weight 0.35 ± 0.01 g) were fed five experimental diets containing the following inclusion levels of PL: 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8%. Results showed that final body weight, weight gain and specific growth rate increased significantly (P < 0.05) as dietary PL level increased from 0 to 6%, meanwhile the survival was not affected by dietary PL supplementation. Increasing dietary PL level significantly (P < 0.05) increased in 20:4n-6 content in neutral lipid of liver, indicating fish had the capacity to convert C18 to C20 and C22 by elongation and desaturation. The expression levels of PPAR-α and PPAR-γ and the activities of catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase in liver were significantly (P < 0.05) increased, and liver thiobarbituric acid reactive substances value was decreased with dietary PL supplementation up to 6% compared with the control. Therefore, it was concluded that supplementation of 6% (18.8 g kg(-1), polar lipid of diet) PL could improve growth performance of blunt snout bream fingerlings.