Objective To understand the current situation of ambulatory surgery cancellation rates and the reasons for cancellation. Methods China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang data, VIP database, Embase, Web of Science, PubMed and Cochrane Library were systematically searched for literature reporting cancellation of ambulatory surgery and published between January 1st, 2000 and September 1st, 2023. Data extraction and meta-analysis were conducted after literature screening, and subgroup analyses were conducted based on the type of the ward, reasons for cancellation, and study sites. Results A total of 19 studies were included, with a total of 270528 cases of ambulatory surgeries, among which 12250 cases were cancelled. The ambulatory surgery cancellation rate was 5.8% [95% confidence interval (CI) (4.5%, 7.1%)]. Subgroup analyses showed that the cancellation rates of general wards, pediatric wards, and ophthalmic wards were 4.0% [95%CI (2.9%, 5.1%)], 9.9% [95%CI (5.2%, 14.5%)], and 8.1% [95%CI (2.7%, 13.4%)], respectively, and the difference in the cancellation rate among different types of wards was statistically significant (P=0.02); there was a significant difference in the surgery cancellation rate among different reasons for cancellation (P<0.01), the highest cancellation rate of surgery was due to disease factors, which was 2.5% [95%CI (1.2%, 3.9%)]; there was no statistically significant difference in the cancellation rate among different study sites (P=0.43). Conclusions The issue of cancellation of ambulatory surgery is prominent in clinical practice. Optimized management is therefore suggested in urgent.