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

The medals were presented by Ng Ser Miang, IOC member, Singapore and Petra Sorling, Executive Vice President of the ITTF.

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.