Abstract Background Oesophagagogastric cancers are characterised by their propensity to spread to the locoregional lymph nodes or to distant sites by transcoelomic migration. Accurate staging is imperative to select patients for treatment according to the likelihood of clinical benefit; sparing patients with advanced disease aggressive treatment which would most likely be futile. Staging laparoscopy combined with peritoneal cytology is usually employed as a method to detect peritoneal metastases which would not detected by other staging modalities. Our study focuses on stage migration following staging laparoscopy in patient with oeophagogastric cancers and thus analyses the clinical rationale for staging laparoscopy in these patients. Methods Data from all patients undergoing staging laparoscopy by a standardised procedure for oesophagogastric cancer between January 2013 and December 2022 was studied retrospectively using a prospectively maintained database. Patient demographics, tumour location, preoperative staging, laparoscopy findings, cytology, histopathology and subsequent treatment decisions at multi-disciplinary meetings were analysed. Results A total of 317 patients were identified. Of these 103 (32.5 %) were female. Median age was 69 (33-88) years. The site of tumour was oesophageal for 108 (34%) patients, junctional including gastric cardia for 56 (18%) and gastric (fundus to pylorus) for 153 (48%). Positive peritoneal cytology was identified in 38 (11.9%) patients. There was no significant difference between findings of metastases between primarily oesophageal and primarily gastric tumours (p=0.14). cTNM staging for metastatic disease at laparoscopy was most commonly T3N2 and T3N3 with 10 patients (26.3%) each. Only 5 (13.5%) of patients declared metastatic had been staged as cT4. Conclusions The yield for staging laparoscopy was found to be similar for oesophageal and gastric tumour locations independent of stage. Evidently, while the procedure remains a valuable tool in the staging and management of patients with clinically resectable oesophagogastric cancer,it is essential that the staging laparoscopy procedure be standardised in practice to allow comparisons across regional or national institutes. This stands to impact both the clinical benefit and the cost-effectiveness of the procedure in the long run.