The men's freestyle welterweight competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London took place from 29 July to 31 July at the Empress Hall, Earls Court Exhibition Centre.

[1] Welterweight was the fourth-heaviest category, including wrestlers weighing 67 to 73 kilograms (147.7 to 160.9 lb).

[2] This freestyle wrestling competition continued to use the "bad points" elimination system introduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Greco-Roman and at the 1932 Summer Olympics for freestyle wrestling, with the slight modification introduced in 1936.

Each round featured all wrestlers pairing off and wrestling one bout (with one wrestler having a buy, if there were an odd number).

At the end of each round, any wrestler with at least 5 points was eliminated.