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The increasing building energy consumption in China has been acknowledged as a key concern in future climate mitigation and sustainable development. Though reliable accounting of energy consumption is the prerequisite, estimates of China's building energy consumption remain subject to large discrepancies. One of the primary causes of these disparities is an inaccurate estimation of building energy intensities due to flaws in estimation methods and data. Here, we present a bottom-up approach and use large-scale nationwide building energy survey data (covering 30 provinces, four different types of buildings, and district heating from 2009 to 2016) to correct the existing, widely used assumption of normal distribution for building energy intensity and provide a more accurate estimate of building energy consumption in China. Our improved estimate of China's building energy consumption differs by −10% to 36% from existing mainstream estimates, indicating a significant bias in existing research and applications. • The non-normal probability distribution of building energy intensity is identified. • A bottom-up approach for the accurate estimate of building energy use is developed. • The re-quantified building energy use differs by −10% ~ 36% from the main estimates. • The features of building energy consumption in China were explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]