Objective To compare the value of the 2018 Chinese guideline prognostic score with that of the 2019 European Society of Cardiology （ESC） in the predicting efficiency for acute pulmonary embolism （APE） in 30?day all?cause mortality. Methods The data of the hospitalized patients with confirmed APE from January 2015 to December 2019 were retrospectively collected. According to death within 30 days， the patients were divided into a death group and a survival group. Subgroup analysis was performed according to gender， oxygen saturation and infection. The SPSS software was used to establish the receiver operating characteristic curve （ROC） for the two scores and calculated the area under the curve （AUC）. The Delong′s test was applied to compare the AUC differences. The net reclassification index （NRI） and integrated discrimination improvement （IDI） were calculated using the R software packages of survival， survIDINRI， and PredictABEL. Results 626 APE patients were enrolled， and 30?day death was predicted in those patients using two scores. In terms of overall discrimination， the 2018 Chinese guideline prognostic score was better than the 2019 ESC guideline prognostic score， with an AUC of 0.782 and 0.749， respectively； but there were no statistical differences between the two AUC （P > 0.05）. In terms of prediction accuracy， the NRI of the 2019 ESC guideline prognostic score was 44.4% （95%CI：0.091 ~ 0.753）， higher than that of the 2018 Chinese guidelines prognostic score， which increased by 58.6% （95%CI：0.161 ~ 0.917） in the correct reclassification to death group， while decreased by 14.2% （95% CI：?0.249 ~ 0.08） in the correct reclassification to survival group. IDI increased by 3.38% （P < 0.05）. Subgroup analysis showed the prognostic scores of the 2018 Chinese guidelines and the 2019 ESC guidelines prognostic scores had predictive ability for patients with different gender and different oxygen saturation （P < 0.05）， and the prognostic scores for co?infected population （AUC： 0.749， 0.772） （P > 0.05）， non?coinfected population （AUC： 0.652， 0.833）. Conclusions Both the 2018 Chinese guideline prognostic score and the 2019 ESC guideline prognostic score can predict 30?day mortality in APE patients， and have a better predictive ability for the co?infected population. However， the predictive accuracy of the former is higher than that of the latter in the survival group， and the score is more rapid and convenient for clinical application， while the latter has improved the prediction ability in the death group。