Abstract The study aimed to measure the effects of audit committee characteristics (audit committee size, audit committee independence, audit committee expertise, and the frequency of audit committee meetings) on the operational risk. This was achieved through conducting an empirical study for a sample of banks listed in the Egyptian stock market during the period 2014-2017. A sample consisted of 44 bank observations. Data was collected from the bank's published financial statements. Data was analyzed using multiple regression analysis; in order to test the relationships among research variables included in the research model. Results of statistical analysis showed that there is a negative relationship between each of audit committee size, audit committee independence, and audit committee expertise and the operational risk. And also showed that there no relationship between the frequency of audit committee meetings and the operational risk