The study explored lifetime prevalence of non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) in female and male individuals with eating disorders (ED) and compared ED symptoms, general psychopathology and personality traits across individuals with and without a history of NSSI. The incremental discriminative capacity of gender on the manifestation of lifetime NSSI was also studied. A total sample of 1649 consecutively admitted ED patients (1515 women and 134 men) participated in the current study [339 ED + NSSI (ED with NSSI) and 1310 ED − NSSI (ED without NSSI)]. Specific self‐report measures were included and other clinical and psychopathological indices. The observed lifetime prevalence of NSSI was 20.6% (20.9% in women and 17.2% in men). NSSI was not associated with ED type or gender. However, ED + NSSI patients exhibited more impulsive behaviour, substance‐abuse disorders and additional impulse‐control disorders, were younger and had more previous treatments. Age was shown to affect the presentation of NSSI. Additionally, ED + NSSI patients exhibited more severe ED and general psychopathological symptoms and had more dysfunctional personality traits when compared with ED − NSSI. ED + NSSI was found to be positively associated with harm avoidance and self‐transcendence but negatively with reward dependence, self‐directedness and cooperativeness. Thus, the variables with stronger capacity to identify the presence of ED + NSSI were younger age, harm avoidance, self‐directedness and self‐transcendence. A lack of association between sex and ED subtype with the presence of NSSI was observed.