An apparatus and method for estimating a coarse carrier frequency offset in an OFDM receiver are provided, in which an Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) unit performs FFT for a received signal over one symbol duration and outputs a previously known signal included in the FFT signal, a correlation value calculator evaluates autocorrelation values of the previously known signal for plural candidate offsets, an accumulator accumulates the autocorrelation values to the autocorrelation values evaluated over a previous symbol duration, and a maximum value selector selects first and second maximum values of the autocorrelation values. A threshold tester compares a ratio between the first and second maximum values with a predetermined threshold, and determines a candidate offset corresponding to the first maximum value as the coarse carrier frequency offset if the ratio is less than the threshold. Otherwise, the threshold tester instructs the FFT unit to receive a signal over a next symbol duration.