Previous attempts have been made to determine the role of maternal serum beta human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG) in the pathophysiology of pre-eclampsia. The objective of this study was to determine the correlation between maternal serum free β-hCG and the development of pre-eclampsia as well as to evaluate its utility as a predictive test for pre-eclampsia. This was a prospective cross-sectional study carried out in the antenatal clinic of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital Sokoto, Nigeria. A total of 200 pregnant women who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were recruited between 14-20 weeks of gestation. However, only 188 of them were completely followed up till delivery. A pretested questionnaire was used to obtain data of the subjects. Their blood samples were taken under aseptic technique for quantitative free β-hcg estimation using the ELISA technique. The subjects were then followed up till delivery and observed for development of pre-eclampsia. Correlation between serum free β-hCG concentration and blood pressure was studied while a logistic regression was used to determine a prediction model for pre-eclampsia. The result showed that there was statistically significant positive correlation between the maternal serum free β-hCG concentration with the mean systolic blood pressure (r= 0.432, p= 0.000) and mean diastolic blood pressure (r= 0.364, p= 0.000), among women with pre-eclampsia. The logistic regression model was statistically significant (Wald (X2) = 26.13, P= 0.000). Using a Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC), the sensitivity and specificity of free β-hCG as a diagnostic test in pre-eclampsia was 61.1% and 96.5% respectively with cutoff point of 282.3mIU/ml. The study concluded that elevation of maternal serum free β-hCG in early second trimester is a useful indicator to identify women who are likely to develop pre-eclampsia in the same pregnancy