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Aims: Host immunity influences cancer progression and therapeutic response. We investigated the potential of tumour‐infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) around ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in predicting recurrence and progression. Methods and results: CD4, CD8, programmed cell death 1 (PD‐1) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) expression in DCIS from 198 patients was determined by immunohistochemistry. We correlated disease‐free survival (DFS), clinicopathological parameters and biomarker expression with TIL density and CD4/CD8 ratio. High TIL density was associated with high nuclear grade (P < 0.001), DCIS PD‐L1 expression (P = 0.008), TIL PD‐L1 expression (P < 0.001), oestrogen (ER) negativity (P < 0.001), progesterone (PR) negativity (P < 0.001), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positivity (P = 0.002) and triple negativity (P = 0.001). TIL PD‐L1 expression was associated with triple‐negative DCIS (P = 0.028). TIL density was associated with molecular subtypes (P < 0.001). High CD4+ T cell density was associated with high nuclear grade (P = 0.001), microinvasion (P = 0.037), ER negativity (P < 0.001), PR negativity (P = 0.001), HER2 positivity (P = 0.004), triple negativity (P = 0.023) and PD‐L1 expression in TILs (P < 0.011). High CD4/CD8 ratio was associated with PD‐L1 expression in DCIS (P = 0.035) and TILs (P < 0.001). DCIS with higher TIL density disclosed worse DFS (P = 0.012) and was affirmed with multivariate analysis [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.109–2.554, hazard ratio (HR) = 1.683, P = 0.014]. Poorer DFS for ipsilateral invasive recurrence was found for DCIS with higher CD4+ T cell density (P = 0.006) or CD4/CD8 ratio (P = 0.02), confirmed by multivariate analysis for the former (95% CI = 1.369–10.196, HR = 3.736, P = 0.01) and latter (95% CI = 1.311–7.935, HR = 3.225, P = 0.011). Conclusion: DCIS with higher TIL density was associated with poorer prognostic parameters and predicted recurrence, while both CD4+ T cell density and CD4/CD8 ratio were associated with both recurrence and ipsilateral invasive recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]