Different active carbons were used to prepare Ni based catalysts for vapor-phase carbonylation of ethanol. N2 physical adsorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared spectrometry and Scanning electron microscopy were used to investigate the structural properties of carbon carriers. The activity of Ni/C supported catalyst were also studied. The results revealed that wood charcoal had a considerable number of mesopores, higher specific surface area and more oxygen-containing groups which contained C=O functional group on the surface. Ni/C catalyst prepared by wood charcoal showed the highest catalytic activity for ethanol carbonylation with 67.62% of ethanol conversion and 65.48% of product combined selectivity.