Five commercially used infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) vacines in Egypt were subjected to characterization depending on the criteria of safety, efficacy, and immunosuppressive effects. Vaccines varied in their virulence and invasiveness to the bursa of Fabricus. Vaccines were classified into two groups, the first (Bigumboro, CEVA, vineland and univax) was efficiently immunogenic in birds possesing no detectable maternal immunity, but their immune respo nse was not suffecient in chicks with maternal immunity. The second group (Intervet-D 78) produced moderate bursal lesions, was not immunosuppressive and highly immungenic in both immune and susceptible chicks.