Objective To study the influence of footshock (FS) -stress duration on anxiety-like behavior in the elevated plus-maze and open-field tests. Methods Rats (24) were randomly divided into 2 groups: the control group and the FS group. In the FS group, the anxiety model of rat was produced by inevitability footshock (5 minutes in total, once a day; 0.8mA, lasted for 10 seconds, 20 seconds interval) combined with separation. Anxiety-like behavior was evaluated by elevated plus maze and open-field tests after 7 and 14 days of FS-stress. Results After 7 days and 14 days of FS-stress, FS group showed significantly enhanced anxiety-like behavior and reduced locomotion indicated by total entries as compared to the control group (P < 0.01). In the open field test, the entrance times and the retention time in the central zone, the total movement distance, the numbers of rears and grooming in rats in the FS group were lower than those in the control group, which showed lower locomotion and exploratory activity in the FS groups (P < 0.01,P < 0.05).Compared to 7 days of FS-stress, both CT% (the percentage of time spent in the close arm) and CE% (the percentage of entries to the close arm) were reduced after 14 days of FS-stress showing the decreasing anxiety (P < 0.05), as well as the total movement distance and the numbers of rears and grooming (P < 0.05). The reduced locomotion and exploratory activity and self-regarding in the FS group demonstrated the enhanced depression-like behavior in rats.Conclusions Chronic FS-stress contributes to lower locomotion and exploratory activity in rats and leads to anxiety-like behavior in rats. The increased duration of chronic FS-stress may lead to the behavior change from anxiety-like behavior to depression-like behavior, and 7-days is better than 14-days in making the anxiety model in rats.