The men's singles table tennis event was part of the table tennis programme at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The event took place from 6 August to 11 August 2016 at Riocentro.

Seeds were based on the ITTF World Ranking lists published in July 2016 with a maximum of 2 players per country.

[1] The top 16 seeded players qualified directly to the third round.

The players seeded from 17 to 32 qualified directly to the second round.