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Background: Ischemic stroke (IS) is a common cause of death from vascular diseases. Studies have found that smoking increases the risk of ischemic stroke, but the association of smoking with the outcome of IS remains unclear. This meta-analysis aims to investigate the effect of smoking on the prognosis of IS. Methods: We searched four electronic databases including PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane library and Web of science for papers, published before January 2019. In this meta-analysis, Review Manager 5.3 software was used to calculate for the pooled estimate effect, as well as the inverse-variance method for pooled mean difference (MD) and odds ratio (OR) of incidence in two groups of population. Results: A total of 14,789 citations were identified during the literature search, 21 studies were included in the meta-analyses after screening. The full-adjusted OR of poor prognostic outcome in smoking and nonsmoking patients with stroke was pooled as 0.96 (95% CI 0.77–1.21), suggested that smoking or not has no impact on prognosis of IS. The pooled MD of onset age between smoking and nonsmoking IS patients was − 10.05 (− 12.91, − 7.19), indicated that smoking causes first onset of IS to occur 10 years earlier. Conclusions: This meta-analysis showed that smoking was not a protective factor for poor prognosis of IS. Smoking patients with IS are 10 years younger than nonsmoking patients at time of the first onset of stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]