Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics and autoantibody levels in the elderly patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). Methods A retrospective analysis was carried out on 112 AIH patients admitted to our department from January 2013 to January 2018. According to their age, these patients were divided into the aged group (≥60 years old, n=33) and the non-aged group (<60 years old, n=79). Their clinical data, biochemical indicators, and autoantibody levels were collected and compared between the 2 groups. SPSS statistics 16.0 was used to perform the statistical analysis. According to the data type, Student′s t test, Mann-Whitney test or Chi-square test was employed for comparison between groups. Results The incidence rates of symptoms, such as fatigue (54.5% vs 78.5%) and nausea and vomiting (18.2% vs 39.2%) were significantly lower, but those of cirrhosis (36.4% vs 17.7%) and complication with extrahepatic autoimmune diseases (33.3% vs 16.5%) were obviously higher in the aged group than the non-aged group. The aged group had notably lower platelet count [(155.2±76.1)×10⁹/L vs (186.2±77.2)×10⁹/L], while remarkably higher concentrations of blood urea nitrogen [(5.1±1.6) vs (4.4±1.3)mmol/L] and creatinine [(62.1±16.2) vs (57.5±15.1)μmol/L] when compared with the other group (all P<0.05). The positivity rate of anti-nuclear antibody was higher in the aged group than the other group (87.9% vs 79.7%), though without statistically significance (P>0.05). Conclusion The elderly AIH patients are prone to cirrhosis, extrahepatic immune disease, and renal function decline. Age-related immune dysfunction may affect the clinical manifestations in these patients.