| Santosh Trophy | |
| Year: | 1986–87 |
| Other Titles: | National Football Championship |
| Winners: | Bengal |
| Count: | 22 |
| Second: | Railways |
| Prev Season: | 1985–86 |
| Next Season: | 1987–88 |
The 1986–87 Santosh Trophy was the 43rd edition of the Santosh Trophy, the main State competition for football in India. It was held in Tamluk, and Rabindra Sarobar Stadium and Mohun Bagan Ground in Calcutta, West Bengal. Bengal defeated Railways 2–0 in the final to win the competition for the 22nd time.
Bihar, Services, Railways and Haryana qualified from Cluster one to four. The eight teams that finished in the top two positions in each group in the quarter-final league in 1985–86 were seeded directly to the quarter-final.
Karnataka goal-keeper Basheer saved a penalty from Brooks in the 57th minute.
Bengal captain Biswajit Bhattacharya was replaced by Sisir Ghosh in the 30th minute of the first half. He played no further part in the tournament.
Maharashtra led 7–1 in the first half, four goals scored by Jaswant Singh.
Prasanta Banerjee's goal went through the net and was awarded by the referee after consultation with the linesman B. S. Bisht. Maharashtra refused to play and there was a delay of seven minutes.
After the match ended at 1–1 after 90 minutes, the crowd threw stones at the Kerala players. Thomas Sebastian was hit by a stone and needed medical attention. Debashis Roy's header appeared to have been saved on the goal line but was given as a goal.
Railways were coached by P. K. Banerjee. Bengal's coach was Arun Sinha and manager Subhash Bhowmick.