Purpose: To determine whether early goal-directed therapy (EGDT) reduces mortality compared with other resuscitation strategies for patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with septic shock. Methods: Using a search strategy of PubMed, EmBase and CENTRAL, we selected all relevant randomised clinical trials published from January 2000 to January 2015. We translated non-English papers and contacted authors as necessary. Our primary analysis generated a pooled odds ratio (OR) from a fixed-effect model. Sensitivity analyses explored the effect of including non-ED studies, adjusting for study quality, and conducting a random-effects model. Secondary outcomes included organ support and hospital and ICU length of stay. Results: From 2395 initially eligible abstracts, five randomised clinical trials (n = 4735 patients) met all criteria and generally scored high for quality except for lack of blinding. There was no effect on the primary mortality outcome (EGDT: 23.2 % [495/2134] versus control: 22.4 % [582/2601]; pooled OR 1.01 [95 % CI 0.88–1.16], P = 0.9, with heterogeneity [I2 = 57 %; P = 0.055]). The pooled estimate of 90-day mortality from the three recent multicentre studies (n = 4063) also showed no difference [pooled OR 0.99 (95 % CI 0.86–1.15), P = 0.93] with no heterogeneity (I2 = 0.0 %; P = 0.97). EGDT increased vasopressor use (OR 1.25 [95 % CI 1.10–1.41]; P