Recent genome-wide association studies have identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms at 16 genetic loci associated with colorectal cancer risk: rs6691170 (1q41), rs10936599 (3q26.2), rs16892766 (8q23.3), rs6983267 (8q24.21), rs10795668 (10p14), rs3802842 (11q23.1), rs11169552 (12q13.13), rs4444235, rs1957636 (14q22.2), rs4779584 (15q13.3), rs9929218 (16q22.1), rs4939827 (18q21.1), rs10411210 (19q13.11), rs961253 and rs4813802 (20p12.3) and rs4925386 (20q13.33). In the present study, we examined whether these variants are preferentially associated with tumour subtype-tumour site, stage, degree of differentiation and microsatellite instability status-in 3146 patients. Several loci showed statistically significant associations with specific phenotypes notably rs6691170 and rs3802842 associated with microsatellite stable rectal disease; rs4779584, rs961253 and rs4813802 associated with microsatellite stable colonic disease and rs4444235 and rs4925386 with microsatellite instability colonic disease. These findings are consistent with pathogenic variants in loci differentially impacting on distinct morphogenetic pathways consistent with aetiologically different risk factors in the development of colorectal cancer.