The objective of this study was to evaluate correlations between animal welfare criteria from the Welfare Quality® protocol applied to dairy cows. The protocol was applied on 47 primiparous and 54 multiparous dairy cows housed in a free-stall barn located in São João Batista do Glória, Minas Gerais - Brazil. Twelve welfare criteria were obtained from mostly animal-based welfare measures as proposed by the protocol. Pearson correlation coefficients (r) were calculated between criteria adopting 5% of probability as the significance level. Positive correlations (P < 0.05) were found between absence of prolonged hunger criterion and the criteria absence of prolonged thirst (r = 0.77), comfort around resting (r = 0.84), and absence of diseases (r = 0.70). Absence of prolonged thirst was also positively correlated (P < 0.05) with comfort around resting (r = 0.67) and absence of injuries (r = 0.64). Similarly, a positive correlation (P < 0.05) was found between comfort around resting and expression of social behaviors (r = 0.68). Lastly, a negative correlation (P < 0.05) was found between absence of disease and good human-animal relationship (r = 0.65). Therefore, we conclude that there is significant correlation between certain animal welfare criteria from the Welfare Quality® protocol.