Background: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common type of thyroid malignancy and has one of the most increasingly incidence among other cancers in the United States. According to the theory of cancer stem cells (CSCs), it has been established that expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH1A1) has been linked to play a fundamental role in PTC initiation, proliferation, invasiveness, local recurrence metastasis and chemotherapeutic resistance. However, ALDH1A1 expression patterns in the normal tissue around PTC (NPT) and comparing it with that of multinodular goiter (MNG) have not been well established. Materials and methods: A total of 70 patients included in this study, mostly admitted to Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital/Baghdad. 50 cases of PTC including safety margins with 5 cases positive nodal metastasis and 20 cases of MNG tissue specimens have been prepared to be stained immunohistochemically with anti-ALDH1A1, and compared the expression profiles between the two groups and with age and gender. Results: Overexpression of ALDH1A1 was significant in the NPT group compared to that of MNG in regards to the percentage of immunopositive cells and staining intensity. NPT with nodal metastasis group showed even higher significant difference than metastasis negative NPT group (P-value<0.01). Conclusion: ALDH1A1 expression in normal tissue around PTC was similar to that of PTC and higher than MNG tissue.