ABSTRACT   Two hundred freshwater fish samples including 100 Tilapia fish (50 from urban and 50 from rural areas) and 100 Mugilcephalus fish (50 from urban and 50 from rural areas) were collected from different fish markets at Mansoura City, Dakahlia Governorate. The collected samples were examined bacteriologically for determination oftotal aerobic plate count (APC), Coliforms count, anaerobic bacterial count in addition to isolation and serotyping of Staph. aureus; Salmonellae; E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes. The obtained results showed that there were a significant difference (P<0.05) in bacterial counts between rural and urban areas in the examined samples of Tilapia nilotica and Mugilcephalus, these results were in accordance with the Egyptian Organization for Standardization and Quality Control (EOS) No. 3494 (2007) for APC while some higher results were recorded in anaerobic counts, Coliforms and Staph. aureus which were unacceptable. Meanwhile, the results of coagulase positive Staph. aureus were negative which were acceptable. In addition to the incidence results of E. coli, Salmonellae and L. monocytogenes which give indication of sewage pollution, mishandling during transportation, distribution and storage conditions as well as marketing. Hence fish should be chilled as quickly as possible to lowest temperature from the harvesting point up to consumption with periodical cleaning and disinfection for containers used for fish transportation.