L-tyrosine is an amino acid that has been widely used in the food, agriculture and pharmaceutical industries. In order to screen a tyrosine phenol-lyase (TPL) with excellent catalytic performance for L-tyrosine production, TPL genes from Citrobacter freundii (CfTPL), Erwinia herbicola (EhTPL) and Rhodobacter capsulatus (TutA) were codon-optimized and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. The results showed that EhTPL had the highest whole cell catalysis activity and tyrosine yield (3-fold that of CfTPL). The results of RT-qPCR and a stability analysis also revealed that EhTPL had a higher transcriptional level in whole cell catalysis, while CfTPL possessed greater stability. Conditions for the production by whole cell transformation were optimized in terms of reaction conditions and fed-batch strategy. Finally, the maximum production was obtained with a titer of 48.5 g·L by intermittent feeding with a conversion ratio of 75%.