The aim of this study is to investigate the economic performance of the waste heat recovery (WHR) system for a marine diesel engine. Four waste heat sources, which are exhaust gas, cylinder cooling water, scavenge air cooling water and lubricating oil of a marine diesel engine, are first applied to drive the transcritical Rankine cycle (TRC). R1234yf, R1234ze, R134a, R152a, R236fa and R290 are employed in the system as working fluids. The effects of expander inlet pressure and temperature on net power output, thermal efficiency, total cost, mass flow rate, and available efficiency of the WHR system are analyzed. The levelized energy cost is used to evaluate the economic optimizations and their corresponding optimal parameters in the WHR system. The results show that the optimal levelized energy cost of R236fa is the most excellent and is lower than that of R1234ze, R134a, R152a, R1234yf or R290 by 5.07%, 6.25%, 7.42%, 9.77% or 12.11%, respectively. The payback period, fuel oil saving, and CO2 emission reduction are applied to assess the suitability of these working fluids. Furthermore, the economic optimization correlations in terms of dimensionless optimal pressures and temperature difference ratios are proposed for the system design of the optimal operating conditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.