Aims/hypothesis The relationship between insulin secretion and the incidence of hypertension has not been well characterised. We hypothesised that both a parental history of diabetes and TCF7L2 rs7903146 polymorphism, which increases susceptibility to diabetes because of impaired beta cell function, are associated with incident hypertension. In a separate cohort, we assessed whether low insulin secretion is related to incident hypertension. Methods Nine year incident hypertension was studied in 2,391 normotensive participants from the Data from an Epidemiological Study on the Insulin Resistance Syndrome (DESIR) cohort. The relationship between insulin secretion and 3 year incident hypertension was investigated in 1,047 non-diabetic, normotensive individuals from the Relationship between Insulin Sensitivity and Cardiovascular Disease (RISC) cohort. Insulin secretion during OGTT was expressed in relation to the degree of insulin resistance, as assessed by a hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp. Results In the DESIR cohort, a parental history of diabetes and the TCF7L2 at-risk variant were both associated with hypertension incidence at year 9, independently of waist circumference, BP, fasting glucose, insulin levels and HOMA-IR at inclusion (p=0.02 for parental history, p=0.006 for Members of the DESIR Study Group and the RISC investigators are listed in the electronic supplementary material (ESM).Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00125-013-3021-y) contains peer-reviewed but unedited supplementary material, which is available to authorised users.