The results of our study suggest that genes involved in general resistance mechanisms of plants contribute to variation of BYDV resistance in maize. With increasing winter temperatures in Europe, Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is expected to become a prominent problem in maize cultivation. Breeding for resistance is the best strategy to control the disease and break the transmission cycle of the virus. The objectives of our study were (1) to determine genetic variation with respect to BYDV resistance in a broad germplasm set and (2) to identify single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers linked to genes that are involved in BYDV resistance. An association mapping population with 267 genotypes representing the world's maize gene pool was grown in the greenhouse. Plants were inoculated with BYDV-PAV using viruliferous Rhopalosiphum padi. In the association mapping population, we observed considerable genotypic variance for the trait virus extinction as measured by double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) and the infection rate. In a genome-wide association study, we observed three SNPs significantly [false discovery rate (FDR) = 0.05] associated with the virus extinction on chromosome 10 explaining together 25 % of the phenotypic variance and five SNPs for the infection rate on chromosomes 4 and 10 explaining together 33 % of the phenotypic variance. The SNPs significantly associated with BYDV resistance can be used in marker assisted selection and will accelerate the breeding process for the development of BYDV resistant maize genotypes. Furthermore, these SNPs were located within genes which were in other organisms described to play a role in general resistance mechanisms. This suggests that these genes contribute to variation of BYDV resistance in maize.