Spherical porous tin oxide was fabricated via a spray pyrolysis technique. TEM revealed that the primary SnO2 crystals had an average size of 5–10nm. Good interconnection between SnO2 crystals is also observed. The electrochemical measurements showed that the spherical porous SnO2 samples have excellent cyclability, which can deliver a reversible capacity of 410mAh/g for up to 50 cycles as a negative electrode for lithium batteries. Our approach for enhancing the structural stability of tin oxide is to incorporate spherical porous structures as a buffer zone to alleviate the volume expansion of the tin oxide anode during lithiation/delithiation.