Abstract: Leveraging the first-mover advantage of the green finance pilots in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is of positive significance for promoting green innovation and high-quality development. Based on the panel data of 108 cities from 2006 to 2022, this study found that green finance had a significant and continuous role in promoting the quality of green innovation in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The role was more prominent in the upstream basin, non-innovative pilot cities, low-carbon pilot cities and digital economic development pilot areas. Optimizing capital allocation, leveraging environmental subsidies and diversifying innovation risks were the potential mechanisms of affecting the quality of green innovation. Further analysis showed that financial technology, government environmental attention and intellectual property protection played a positive regulatory role. Moreover, under the conditions of moderate environmental regulation and higher education investment, green finance played a greater role in improving the quality of green innovation. These findings were helpful to further understand the unique value and function process of green finance. This study provided objective evidence and policy basis for promoting the quality of green innovation in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.