Abstract This paper is concerned with the l 2 − l ∞ state estimation problem for discrete-time switched neural networks with time-varying delay. The main objective is to design a mode-dependent state estimator such that the error dynamics is exponentially stable with a weighted l 2 − l ∞ performance level. By incorporating the novel l 2 − l ∞ performance analysis approach, the augmented piecewise Lyapunov-like functionals, the discrete Wirtinger-based inequality and the average-dwell-time switching, less conservative sufficient conditions are proposed by means of linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and benefits of the obtained results.