Background The adverse health effects of air pollutants are widely reported, and the elderly are susceptible to toxic environments. This study aimed to identify the all-cause mortality associated with cooking fuel use among the elderly. Methods A total of 5732 and 3869 participants from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey were enrolled in two (2014–2018) and three waves (2011–2018) of survey. Cooking fuel was divided into clean and solid fuel. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the mortality hazard ratio (HR). Subgroup analyses were performed to assess the potential interaction effect. Results The 5732 participants who reported using solid fuel (53.47%) were associated with higher HR (9.47 per 100 person-years, n=1743) (HR=1.09, 95% CI=1.01–1.18) in 2011–2018. The 3869 participants who reported change of using cooking fuel in 2011–2014, stable solid fuel use was were associated with higher HR (5.07 per 100 person-years, n=509) compared with th