A modest rise in blood pressure (BP) reportedly increases cardiovascular mortality despite not reaching obvious hypertension, suggesting that target organ damages are latently induced by slight BP rising. The goal of this study was to determine whether presence of subclinical myocardial damage can predict the future development of hypertension in the normotensive general population. The cohort study was conducted with subjects who participated in a community-based annual health check. Normotensive subjects without prior cardiovascular diseases at baseline were eligible for analyses (n = 524, mean age 58 ± 9 years; 53% women). We measured heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP) at baseline as a biomarker of ongoing myocardial damage. Longitudinal changes in BP were examined during median follow-up period of 6.2 years, and we investigated the association between the baseline H-FABP level and longitudinal BP changes. During the follow-up, 177 subjects (34%) developed hypertension. In multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis adjusted for potential confounders including age and baseline BP, presence of myocardial damage was significantly associated with the development of hypertension (hazard ratio 1.80, 95% confidence interval, 1.26-2.54; P = 0.0014). Furthermore, relative risk of myocardial damage for incident hypertension was higher in younger subjects and lower BP category. Presence of subclinical myocardial damage was independently associated with the future development of hypertension in the normotensive general population.