•Free vibration of marine riser is re-analyzed using variational iteration method.•Natural frequencies and modes shapes of marine risers are extracted.•VIM can give consistently accurate results with good convergence.Marine risers are important components operating in offshore oil and gas industry. The vortex-induced vibration design of marine risers requires accurate knowledge of natural frequencies and mode shapes. Free vibration of marine risers are re-examined in this paper by means of variational iteration method, which is relatively new technique capable of dealing with eigenvalue problems rather efficiently. Solutions from the variational iteration method are compared to approximate solutions previously proposed in literatures via a numerical example. Furthermore, validation of the technique is demonstrated by comparing experimentally measured natural frequencies of model marine riser with the predicted ones.