Electronic and optical properties of β-HgS have been investigated using the density functional theory. The calculated lattice parameter is 6.043 Å, the bulk modulus is 57.17 GPa, the equilibrium volume is 55.25 Å 3. From the band structure, a direct band gap of 0.00002 eV was obtained, which agreed well with other calculations. The plot of the dielectric constant against photon energy indicated several distinctive peaks. The imaginary part has a peak value of 34.99 at 0.47 eV and the real part has a peak value of 29.65 at 0.40 eV. The values obtained for electronic and optical properties of β-HgS are essentially important for applications in optoelectronics.