Background: Oral leukoplakia (OL) is the most common precancer representing bulk of such lesions. Alcohol, viruses, genetic mechanisms, candida and chronic irritation have modifying effects in the etiology of oral cancer. Hence; the present study was commenced undertaken for assessing the salivary copper levels in patients with oral pre-cancerous lesions. Materials & methods: 35 patients with histopathologic confirmed diagnosis of oral pre-malignant lesions and 35 Healthy controls with absence of any form of oral lesion. Unstimulated salivary samples were obtained from all the patients in sterilized vials. All the samples were sent to laboratory where an auto-analyser was used for assessing the salivary copper levels. All the results were recorded in Microsoft excel sheet and were analysed by SPSS software. Mann Whitney U test was used for assessment of level of significance. Results: Mean copper concentration in the saliva among the patients of the premalignant lesion group was 70.69 ppb and found to be significantly higher in comparison to the patients of the healthy controls where it was found to be 20.13 ppb. Conclusion: Salivary copper levels are significantly altered in patients with premalignant lesions in comparison to healthy controls. Key words: Copper, Pre-malignancy, Salivary