The implementation of environmental regulation holds positive significance for the improvement of the ecological environment and social well-being. In order to explore the impact of environmental regulation on residents’ life satisfaction, an empirical analysis was conducted using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS-2020), focusing on a sample of 13,669 respondents across 25 provinces in China. The mediation effect model was also used to investigate the influence mechanism from the residents’ subjective cognitive perspective. The results indicate that: (1) Environmental regulation has a significant effect on residents’ life satisfaction, as confirmed by various robustness tests. (2) The effect of environmental regulation on improving residents’ life satisfaction is more pronounced among urban residents, young people, and those with a college education or higher. (3) Environmental regulation improves residents’ life satisfaction by minimizing their pollution perception and enhancing their selfrated health. Based on these findings, the government needs to continuously strengthen the supervision of environmental regulations, enhance residents’ trust in environmental policies, and formulate more accurate environmental improvement measures for different groups of residents simultaneously.