Objectives To establish the quality criteria for clinical nursing practice guidelines in China. Methods Two focus groups’ interviews for 26 clinical nursing experts and methodological experts from China were adopted to build the quality criteria for clinical nursing practice guidelines. Results The quality criteria for clinical nursing practice guidelines in China covered 5 domains and 15 items, which included scientificity/rigor, effectiveness/safety, economy, availability/feasibility, and conflict of interest. All items were from 0 to 5 scale and weighted 0.5 to 2 based on their contributions to the quality of guidelines. Conclusions The quality criteria for clinical nursing practice guidelines adopt the same framework with the quality criteria of guidelines in medical field and also integrate features of nursing. It provides the quality standard for Chinese clinical nursing practice guidelines.