Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common malignant tumor involving the kidney. Determining the subtypes of renal cell carcinoma is among the major goals of preoperative radiological work-up. Among all modalities, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has several advantages, such as inherent soft tissue contrast, detection of lipid and blood products, and excellent sensitivity to detect small amounts of intravenous contrast, which facilitate the discrimination of subtypes of RCC. In this article, we review MRI and pathological features used for determining the main histologic subtypes of RCC, including clear cell, papillary, collecting duct, chromophobe, multilocular cystic, and unclassified RCC.