Split liver transplantation (SLT) has proven to be an effective technique of increasing the donor pool and thereby reducing adult and paediatric waiting list mortality. There remains concern regarding complications in adult recipients. Here, we compare SLT with matched whole liver grafts. Adult recipients of primary extended right lobe grafts (ERL) were matched to recipients of whole liver transplantations (WLTs) according to the following criteria: model of end-stage liver disease (MELD) score, recipient age, indication for liver transplantation and year of transplantation. Twenty-seven pairs of recipients were transplanted for chronic liver disease. The overall 30-day patient survival rates after ERL and WLT were 88.9% and 92.5% and 3-year survival rates after SLT and WLT were 77.8% and 85.2% respectively (log-rank = 0.38). Two patients with SLTs had hepatic artery thromboses and were retransplanted with none from the WLT group. The prevalence of a biliary leak was higher among the SLT group (n = 4) compared with none in the WLT group (P = 0.05). Patients with preoperative hyponatraemia showed a trend towards poorer survival after SLT compared with WLT. Our data suggest that SLT with extended right liver lobes, although not significantly different, shows a trend towards a poorer outcome.