Castanopsis fordii Hance 1884 is a typical evergreen broad-leaved forest plant in the south subtropical and middle subtropical regions of China. It has high utilization value in wood production and soil erosion protection. Here, we first reported and characterized the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of C. fordii based on Illumina paired-end sequencing data. The complete cp genome sequence of C. fordii was 160,853 base pairs (bp) in length which contained two inverted repeats (IRs) of 25,699 bp separated by a large single-copy (LSC) and a small single copy (SSC) of 90,474 bp and 18,981 bp, respectively. The cpDNA contained 129 genes, comprising 85 protein-coding genes, 36 tRNA genes, 8 rRNA genes. The overall GC content of the plastome was 36.8%. Phylogenetic analysis base on 14 chloroplast genomes indicated that C. fordii was closely related to the species C. tibetana and C. concinna in Fagaceae.