From the results of Dostanic [M.R. Dostanic, Asymptotic behavior of the singular values of fractional integral operators, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 175 (1993) 380–391] and Vũ and Gorenflo [Kim Tuan Vũ, R. Gorenflo, Singular values of fractional and Volterra integral operators, in: Inverse Problems and Applications to Geophysics, Industry, Medicine and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City, 1995, Ho Chi Minh City Math. Soc., Ho Chi Minh City, 1995, pp. 174–185] it is known that the jth singular value of the fractional integral operator of order α>0 is approximately (πj)−α for all large j. In this note we refine this result by obtaining sharp bounds for the singular values and use these bounds to show that the jth singular value is (πj)−α[1+O(j−1)].