Objective To systematically review and analyze the publication of clinical guidelines and consensuses on day surgery in Chinese-language journals, summarizing achievements, shortcomings, and future development directions. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted on China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, SinoMed, and China Medical Journal Full-text Database to collect day surgery clinical guidelines and consensuses published up to December 31, 2025, followed by systematic summarization and analysis. Results A total of 55 clinical guidelines and consensuses were ultimately included, among which 4 were clinical guidelines. No day surgery clinical guidelines or consensuses were published before 2015, with the highest number of publications in 2019. Based on content coverage and professional fields, these day surgery clinical guidelines and consensuses included 7 comprehensive management categories, 32 specialty/specific surgical procedure categories, 13 anesthesia, rapid recovery, and nursing categories, and 3 medical record writing categories. By issuing institution/academic entity, these clinical guidelines or consensuses included 38 from national-level industry associations, 11 from large medical institutions, and 5 from provincial/municipal/county-level professional committees. Among them, 13 day surgery clinical guidelines and consensuses reported recommendation levels and strengths. Most guidelines and consensuses were formulated by referencing advanced day surgery practices abroad while integrating China’s national conditions and operational experiences of medical institutions. Conclusions Evidence from Chinese-language journals shows that clinical guidelines and consensuses building for day surgery in China have achieved certain results, forming a basic framework for guiding practice. However, there are still challenges in terms of system integrity, implementation effectiveness, and scientific research support.