a b s t r a c tA series of binuclear palladium(II) salicylaldiminato dithiosemicarbazone complexes have been synthesized and characterized. The palladium complexes were obtained by the reaction of various ethyleneand phenylene-bridged dithiosemicarbazones with Pd(PPh 3 ) 2 Cl 2 . The free salicylaldimine ligands and their palladium complexes were characterized by NMR and IR spectroscopies, ESI-mass spectrometry, elemental analyses and for two representative complexes also by X-ray diffraction. In both metal complexes, the solid-state structures show the two palladium centers to be coordinated in a slightly distorted square-planar geometry, which gives rise in each case to five-and six-membered chelate rings. The salicylaldimine thiosemicarbazone ligands coordinate to palladium in a tridentate manner, through the phenolic oxygen, imine nitrogen and thiolate sulfur atoms.