The Vishnu Purana (Sanskrit: विष्णुपुराण) is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of ancient and medieval texts of Hinduism. It is an important Pancharatra text in the Vaishnavism literature corpus.

The manuscripts of Vishnu Purana have survived into the modern era in many versions. More than any other major Purana, the Vishnu Purana presents its contents in Pancalaksana format – Sarga (cosmogony), Pratisarga (cosmology), Vamsa (genealogy of the gods and goddesses, sages and kings and queens), Manvantara (cosmic cycles), and Vamsanucarita (legends during the times of various kings and queens). Some manuscripts of the text are notable for not including sections found in other major Puranas, such as those on Mahatmyas and tour guides on pilgrimage, but some versions include chapters on temples and travel guides to sacred pilgrimage sites. The text is also notable as the earliest Purana to have been translated and published in 1840 CE by HH Wilson, based on manuscripts then available, setting the presumptions and premises about what Puranas may have been.

The Vishnu Purana is among the shorter Purana texts, with about 7,000 verses in extant versions. It primarily centers around the Hindu god Vishnu and his avataras such as Rama and Krishna, but it praises Brahma and Shiva and says that they are dependent on Vishnu. The Purana, states Wilson, is pantheistic and the ideas in it, like other Puranas, are premised on the Vedic beliefs and ideas.

Vishnu Purana, like all major Puranas, attributes its author to be sage Vyasa. The actual author(s) and date of its composition are unknown and contested. Estimates of its composition range from 400 BCE to 900 CE. The text was likely composed and rewritten in layers over a period of time, with roots possibly in ancient 1st-millennium BCE texts that have not survived into the modern era. The Padma Purana categorizes Vishnu Purana as a Sattva Purana (Purana that represents goodness and purity).

The composition date of Vishnu Purana is unknown and contested, with estimates widely disagreeing. Some proposed dates for the earliest version of Vishnu Purana by various scholars include:

Rocher states that the "date of the Vishnu Purana is as contested as that of any other Purana". References to Vishnu Purana in texts such as Brihadvishnu whose dates are better established, states Rocher, suggest that a version of Vishnu Purana existed by about 1000 CE, but it is unclear to what extent the extant manuscripts reflect the revisions during the 2nd millennium. Vishnu Purana like all Puranas has a complicated chronology. Dimmitt and van Buitenen state that each of the Puranas including the Vishnu Purana is encyclopedic in style, and it is difficult to ascertain when, where, why and by whom these were written:

As they exist today, the Puranas are a stratified literature. Each titled work consists of material that has grown by numerous accretions in successive historical eras. Thus, no Purana has a single date of composition. It is as if they were libraries to which new volumes have been continuously added, not necessarily at the end of the shelf, but randomly.

— Cornelia Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas