The aim of the study was to analyze and discuss the value of preoperative systemic immune inflammation index (SII) and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in predicting the prognosis of patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after operation, and to establish a nomogram prediction model for patients with RCC after operation based on SII and PNI. From January 2014 to December 2018, 210 patients with RCC who underwent surgical treatment at the Xuzhou Central Hospital were selected as the research object. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to determine the optimal cut-off value for preoperative SII, PNI, LMR, PLR, NLR and the patients were divided into groups according to the optimal cutoff values. The survival rate of patients was evaluated. The risk factors that affect the prognosis of patients with RCC were determined by LASSO and Cox regression analysis, and a prognostic nomogram was constructed based on this result. The bootstrap method was used for internal verification of the nomogram model. The prediction efficiency and discrimination of the nomogram model were evaluated by the calibration curve and index of concordance (C-index), respectively. The average overall survival (OS) of all patients was 75.385 months, and the 1-, 2-and 3-year survival rates were 95.5%, 86.6% and 77.2%, respectively. The survival curve showed that the 5-year OS rate of low SII group was significantly higher than that of high SII group (89.0% vs. 64.5%; P < 0.05), and low PNI group was significantly lower than those in high PNI group (43.4% vs. 87.9%; p < 0.05). There were significant differences between preoperative SII and CRP, NLR, PLR, LMR, postoperative recurrence, pathological type and AJCC stage (P < 0.05). There were significant differences between preoperative PNI and BMI, platelet, NLR, PLR, LMR, postoperative recurrence, surgical mode and Fuhrman grade (P < 0.05). The ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC of PNI (AUC = 0.736) was higher than that of other inflammatory indicators, followed by the AUC of SII (0.718), and the difference in AUC area between groups was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The results from multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that SII, PNI, tumor size, tumor necrosis, surgical mode, pathological type, CRP, AJCC stage and Fuhrman grade were independent risk factors for postoperative death of patients with RCC. According to the results of Cox regression analysis, a prediction model for the prognosis of RCC patients was established, and the C-index (0.918) showed that the model had good calibration and discrimination. The subject’s operating characteristic curve indicates that the nomogram has good prediction efficiency (the AUC = 0.953). Preoperative SII and PNI, tumor size, tumor necrosis, surgical mode, pathological type, CRP, AJCC stage and Fuhrman grade are closely related to the postoperative prognosis of patients with renal cell carcinoma. The nomogram model based on SII, PNI, tumor size, tumor necrosis, surgical mode, pathological type, CRP, AJCC stage and Fuhrman grade has good accuracy, discrimination and clinical prediction efficiency.