Abstract This work conducted an investigation on the water retention value (WRV) of pulp fibers measured by the conventional centrifugation method (with a screen filter) and the maximum content of fiber bonding water (MCFBW) measured by a headspace gas chromatography (HS-GC), a method with no fine loss, developed recently. The results showed there is an excellent correlation ( R 2 = 0.988 {R^{2}}=0.988 ) between these two methods. However, the WRVs measured by the centrifugation method are consistent lower than the MCFBWs from the HS-GC method and the absolute differences were significantly increases for the refined pulp fibers, i. e., about 50–70 compared to 30+ for the pulps without treatment. The information from this study provides the insight of the real WRVs of the pulps from different processes.