The applicability of chitosan to improve the soil release property of DP finished cotton fabric was investigated. Fabric was treated with a mixture of chitosan. DMDHEU, catalyst and other additives in a single step. Chitosan was used after depolymerizing into five different average molecular weight products from 185, 300 to 3, 800. All the samples treated with DMDHEU/chitosan showed higher soil removal than those treated with DMDHEU. For all the washing temperatures studied, the highest levels of soil removal were exhibited by the samples treated with chitosan of average molecular weight below 21, 00. The improvement of soil removal was attributed to the prevention of deep soiling and the increase in gydrophilicity by the chitosan treatment.