X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to measure the energy discontinuity in the MgO (111)/ZnO (0002) heterostructure. The valence band offset (VBO) was determined to be 1.22卤0.23 eV and a type-I heterojunction with a conduction band offset (CBO) of 3.24卤0.23 eV was obtained. The discrepancy of VBO values between MgO/ZnO and ZnO/MgO heterojunctions was mainly attributed to the internal electric field induced by spontaneous polarization effect in ZnO layer.