Objective: Studies have demonstrated that single measure of remnant cholesterol (RC) is correlated with the risk of ischemic stroke. However, it is unknown whether long-term patterns such as RC trajectory affects the risk of ischemic stroke. We sought to examine the role of RC trajectory in the subsequent development of ischemic stroke in the general population. Design and method: We performed analysis using data of eligible participants from the Kailuan Study cohort who underwent 3 health examinations and were free of atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, stroke, cancer, or known lipid-medication use from 2006 to 2010. Distinct RC trajectories were fitted using group-based trajectory modeling. Participants were followed up for stroke events until 31 December 2021. Multivariate analysis was performed using Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate hazard ratio (HR) with 95% CI. Results: The final study cohort comprised 42 979 participants (mean [SD] age, 49.3 [11.8] years, and 76.6% of them were men). After a median follow-up of 11.0 years, 2277 individuals were newly diagnosed with ischemic stroke. We identified three RC trajectories, which included the low-decreasing group (n=38 413, 89.4%), the moderate-increasing group (n=1282, 3%), and the high-decreasing group (n=3284, 7.6%). Compared with the low-decreasing trajectory group, both individuals in the moderate-increasing group (HR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.56) and high-decreasing group (HR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.43) had higher risk of ischemic stroke after adjusting for age, sex, education, income, marriage, smoking, drinking, physical activity, family history of cardiovascular disease, estimated glomerular filtration rate, C-reactive protein, heart rate, body mass index, fasting blood glucose, antidiabetic drugs, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, antihypertensive drugs, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Results remained robust after additionally adjusting for baseline RC or cumulative RC exposure during 2006-2010, excluding events within the first year of follow-up, or considering death as competing risk. Conclusions: Both moderate and high RC trajectories were associated with a higher risk of ischemic stroke in the general population.