Palliative surgery for gastric cancer refers to the surgery that can only relieve symptoms and relieve complications such as obstruction because the tumor cannot be completely removed due to infiltration or metastasis of gastric cancer, and is divided into palliative gastrectomy to remove the primary focus and short-circuit surgery and stoma surgery that cannot remove the primary cancer. Palliative gastrectomy to remove primary cancer includes palliative distal gastrectomy and total gastrectomy. Palliative gastrectomy can improve patients’ quality of life, improve their nutritional status and create conditions for further treatment. Short-circuit surgery includes gastrojejunostomy for lower and middle gastric cancer, esophagogastric anastomosis for upper gastric cancer, esophageal jejunostomy and esophageal colonic anastomosis. Stoma surgery includes various gastroenterostomies under endoscopy, lumpectomy and open abdomen. Short-circuit surgery or stoma surgery can solve the problems of digestive tract access and feeding of patients, and postoperative treatment supplemented with intravenous nutritional support, chemotherapy and traditional Chinese medicine can appropriately prolong the survival of patients.