Flexibility, as well as high efficiency, of flexible dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is of significant importance to their application. In this study, the photovoltaic performance of the flexible DSCs under bending and relaxed states is investigated to understand the degradation and recovery of the photovoltaic performance. Results show that when the bending radius is larger than 8 mm, the photovoltaic parameters of the flexible DSCs maintain the same values as those in the relaxed states. However, when the bending radius is reduced to 8 mm, the photovoltaic performance is two orders of magnitude decreased. Most interestingly, when the bending DSCs are relaxed, the photovoltaic performance is found to be completely recovered. The microstructure observation shows that the direct contact between TiO2 film and counter electrode (CE) occurred at the bending radius of 8 mm, which should be the main reason for their low photovoltaic performance in the bending state. Finally, a modified equivalent circuit model is proposed for the flexible DSCs under bending condition. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.