The acceptable risk criteria are an important part in connection with geo-hazards risk assessment and management; china's geo-hazards criteria are in the early stages of research. For the targets of the life risk acceptability criteria definition of geo-hazards occurred china, firstly the connotation of criterion is analyzed, and then the Individual Risk (IR) criteria and the Social Risk (SR) criteria are achieved through a consequence based approach. The IR criteria are discussed and defined by using statistical and comparative analysis method based on the casualty data of geo-hazards occurred in recent years in the entire country of china and other twelve Chinese provinces frequently-occurring geo-hazards. The research results of IR are summarized as follows: For the natural geo-hazards, the upper limit of the acceptable individual risk is 10^-6 per annum and the maximum tolerance for the individual risk is 10^-4 per annum; for the geo-hazard IR caused by new built-up slopes, the upper limit of the acceptable individual risk is 10^-7 per annum and the maximum tolerance for the individual risk is 10^-5 per annum. The SR criteria are recommended based on the IR criteria and the international experiences composed by acceptable, unacceptable, ALARP, and intense scrutiny regions. It is suggested that all of the research conclusions are only for the discussion. The result has both theoretical and practical significance to the formulation of risk acceptability criteria and the risk management implementation for geo-hazards in china.