The scattering and backscattering coefficients of 15 phytoplankton species were determined in the laboratory using the acs and BB9 instruments. The spectral variability of scattering properties was investigated and the homogenous sphere model based on Mie theory was also evaluated. The scattering efficiencies at 510 nm varied from 1.42 to 2.26, and the backscattering efficiencies varied from 0.003 to 0.020. The backscattering ratios at 510 nm varied from 0.17% to 0.97%, with a mean value of 0.58%. The scattering properties were influenced by algal cell size and cellular particulate organic carbon content rather than the chlorophyll a concentration. Comparison of the measured results to the values estimated using the homogenous sphere model showed that: (1) The model could well reproduce the spectral scattering coefficient with relative deviations of 5–39%, which indicates that cell shape and internal structure have no significant effects on predicting the scattering spectra; (2) Although the homogenous sphere model generally reflected the spectral trend of backscattering spectra for most species, it severely underestimated the backscattering coefficients by 1.4–48.6 folds at 510 nm. The deviations for Chaetoceros sp. and Microcystis aeruginosa were large and might be due to algal cell chain links and intracellular gas vacuoles, respectively.