In this paper, we obtain an exact formula for the average density of the distribution of complex zeros of a random trigonometric polynomial η 0 + η 1 cos θ + η 2 cos 2θ + · · · + η n cos nθ in 0 2π , where the coefficients η j = a j + ιb j , and a j n j=1 and b j n j=1 are sequences of independent normally distributed random variables with mean 0 and variance 1. We also provide the limiting behaviour of the zeros density function as n tends to infinity. The corresponding results for the case of random algebraic polynomials are known. 2001 Academic Press