Watershed hydrological model is an important tool in water resources assessment and management. Taking the Xunbila River basin located in north China as a study area, regional suitability of HBV model with different quality of rainfall data was investigated. The results showed that HBV model performed generally well for daily discharge simulation of the Xunbila River with Nash coefficient >0.6. Data quality could influence hydrological simulation efficiency of HBV model a great extent. HBV model performed better for well-gauged catchment (e.g. for the Wujiabao station, Nash coefficient was larger than 0.8). Therefore, HBV model is suitable for cold regions of north China when data are good and could be applied to the researches on environmental impact assessment.