Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are long, anionic polysaccharides involved in many basic aspects of mammalian physiology and pathology. Here we describe a method to extract GAGs from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues and found that they are structurally comparable with GAGs extracted from frozen tissues. We employed this method to structurally characterize GAGs in tissues, including laser-dissected layers of skin and pathological specimens. This method enables the use of the archival paraffin-embedded material for detailed (structural) analysis of GAGs.