The Euler equations with frictional force have been extensively studied. Since the Boltzmann equation is closely related to the equations of gas dynamics, we study, in this paper, the Boltzmann equation with frictional force when the external force is proportional to the macroscopic velocity. It is shown that smooth initial perturbation of a given global Maxwellian leads to a unique global-in-time classical solution which approaches to the global Maxwellian time asymptotically. The analysis is based on the macro-micro decomposition for the Boltzmann equation introduced in Liu et al. [Energy method for the Boltzmann equation, Physica D 188 (3-4) (2004) 178-192] and Liu and Yu [Boltzmann equation: micro-macro-decompositions and positivity of shock profiles, Comm. Math. Phys. 246(1) (2004) 133-179] through energy estimates. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.