In this paper, the influence of the specific area of balancing hole on the cavitation performance of high-speed centrifugal pump is studied by numerical method. The results show that in the initial cavitation stage, with the increase of the specific area, the head and efficiency of the pump decreases, and the shaft power increases in a small range. The specific area of the balance hole can change the magnitude and direction of the rotor axial force. With the increase of the specific area, the anti-cavitation performance of the pump is weakened, especially when the specific area reaches a certain value, the vortex flow appears in the balance hole, which causes serious distortion of the flow condition at the inlet of the centrifugal impeller. Meanwhile, cavitation also occurs in the balance chamber and is mainly concentrated near the hub of the centrifugal impeller. © 2020, The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.