Cerium oxide (CeO2) has received a considerable attention due to its capacity to absorb visible light, low cost, high stability and environmental friendly catalytic applications. Among the various techniques employed to synthesize CeO2, solution combustion synthesis is a one-step, economic and effective process. In this work, we report application of combustion synthesized CeO2 as an anodic material in the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The synthesized material were characterized using standard analytical techniques such as XRD, SEM, BET, UV-DRS, and TEM. DSSC was fabricated using the synthesized material and characterized for incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE), current density-voltage (J-V) measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The power conversion efficiency of solar cell was found to be 1.84%. This is the first study to report use of combustion synthesized CeO2 for DSSC application. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.