Objective: In this study we assessed the utility of ran-dom amplified polymorphic DNA in the subtyping of38 isolates of Enterococcus faecalis.Method: Twenty of 38 subtypes were recovered fromurinary tract infections and 18 from rectal swabs ofhospitalized patients with no enterococcal infections.All isolates were initially identified by conventional bac-teriological methods and the API 20 Streptococcus sys-tem.  Biotyping was done on the basis of hippurate hy-drolysis (HH) test using API 20S. Susceptibility of theisolates to vancomycin, teicoplanin, ampicillin and gen-tamicin was performed by the disk diffusion and theagar dilution methods. Antimicrobials were selectedbased on treatment regimen adopted by clinicians. DNAwas extracted from all isolates using the PureGene kitand Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Typing (RAPD)was done using a 10 mer and 22 mer primers reflectingthe GC content of the genome.Results: Our data have shown that 38 tested isolateswere E. faecalis. Thirteen of 38 were of fecal origin and6/38 were of urine origin. All 19 isolates were of bio-type I (HH positive). The remaining 5 of fecal originand 14 of urine origin were of biotype II (HH negative).All isolates were susceptible to vancomycin,teicoplanin and ampicillin except 3 urine and 1 fecalisolates that showed resistance to ampicillin. All urineisolates were resistant to gentamicin while 3 of 18 fe-cal isolates were susceptible to this antimicrobialagent. RAPD data have shown that 2/19 biotype I iso-lates, showed one RAPD pattern and were susceptibleto teichoplanin and vancomycin; and 2/19 showed adifferent pattern and were susceptible to all testedantimicrobials except gentamicin. All 4  isolates wereof urine origin. The remaining 15 biotype I isolates haddifferent patterns. In addition, of 19 biotype II isolates,2 showed one pattern and the remaining 17 differentpatterns. Two isolates were of urine origin and resis-tant to gentamicin. The RAPD patterns were reproduc-ible.Conclusion:  These observations suggest that RAPDis efficient for subtyping E. faecalis and may be usefulas a tool in epidemiologic investigations.Key words: RAPD, enterococcus faecalis, subtyping.