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Recreational fisheries represent a pivotal leisure industry in most countries with coastlines, making substantial contributions to economic growth and social welfare. Spatial spillover effects remain less well explored in the existing research on the sustainability of recreational fisheries. In this study, we develop a framework to assess the sustainability of recreational fisheries across the coast of China from 2010 to 2019. We examine the driving factors and mechanisms sustaining recreational fisheries using a spatial Durbin model. The results reveal an overall upward trend in the sustainability index of China's coastal recreational fisheries, with several notable regional differences. Furthermore, we found that recreational fishery sustainability exhibited spatial dependency across coastal provinces. The sustainability was influenced by both local factors and spillover effects from neighboring regions. The local factors ranked in order by direct effect coefficients from highest to lowest were consumption capability, travel convenience, policy, fishery management, urbanization, and environment. Indirect effect coefficients indicated that the degree of travel convenience and fishery development of neighboring regions had positive spillover effects, whereas consumption capability and tourism had negative effects. These findings offer new insights into the mechanisms influencing recreational fishery sustainability, information that is vital for effective coastal management and the sustainable development of recreational fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]