Since 1758 cockroaches have been collected and described from Egypt by several authors. The relationships within the superorder Dictyoptera have been debated in the literature. The Egyptian cockroaches of the family Ectobiidae (Blattodea) are reviewed. Five species in five genera are recognised, including Blattella germanica, Chorisia reducta, Phyllodromica nilotica, Supella longipalpa and Matabeli natreitlina. Gene sequence of 28s ribosomal RNA is provided for Chorisia reducta (Walker) for the first time. The PCR product was found to be about 512 bp long, after sequencing this result aligned with the GenBank data then constructing the phylogenetic tree by using Mega 0.6 program. Colour images, specimens examined and distributions are given for each species.