Vertical management auditing reforms achieve the centralization of audit institutions. The centralized structure of the auditing institutions affects their performance. This paper verifies the positive effect of vertical management auditing reform on carbon productivity through a difference-in-differences method. The conclusion still holds after robustness tests. Moreover, the policy effects only make sense when government officials face low promotion pressure or high public scrutiny pressure. The mechanism analysis shows that the vertical management auditing reform can improve carbon productivity by strengthening environmental regulation, promoting industrial structure rationalization, and improving regional green innovation and energy efficiency. This paper enriches the research on the relationship between auditing centralization and carbon productivity.