Objective To evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of multi-phase enhanced computed tomography (CT) in differentiating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from liver metastases. Methods A retrospective study was conducted on 78 patients with pathologically confirmed liver malignancies who underwent multi-phase enhanced CT at the Xuchang Second People’s Hospital from January 2023 to December 2024, including 42 cases of HCC and 36 cases of liver metastases. General clinical data, morphological imaging features, enhancement patterns, and hemodynamic parameters were compared between the two groups. Pathology served as the gold standard, and the diagnostic performance of multi-phase enhanced CT was assessed using receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results HCC lesions were more frequently solitary, well-circumscribed, and regular in shape, while metastases were predominantly multiple, irregular, and poorly defined (P＜0.05). Typical enhancement patterns of HCC included marked arterial enhancement with rapid washout in the delayed phase, whereas metastases showed rim-like arterial enhancement with central necrosis and persistent delayed enhancement (P＜0.05). Hemodynamic analysis demonstrated higher peak enhancement, earlier peak time, and faster washout in HCC compared with metastases (P＜0.05). ROC curve analysis revealed that multi-phase enhanced CT achieved high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy in differentiating HCC from metastases, with the area under the curve (AUC) obtained from the combined interpretation of comprehensive imaging features was 0.902. Conclusion Multi-phase enhanced CT provides comprehensive dynamic assessment of vascular characteristics, enabling effective differentiation between HCC and liver metastases.