Industrial water resource utilization efficiency is the core issue affecting industrial water use. Measuring and analyzing its temporal and spatial characteristics can provide an evaluation basis for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. Incorporating industrial water consumption and water pollution emission into measurement system, establishing an undesirable output MinDS window model to measure industrial water utilization efficiency, using variation coefficient method and kernel density estimation method to analyze its spatiotemporal changes. The result shows that the overall industrial water efficiency in the 9 provinces of Yellow River basin shows an N-type trend of rising volatility from 2010 to 2019, and overall efficiency was improved. In terms of spatial distribution, high efficiency centers were located mid-downstream for a long time, showing a distribution trend of high efficiency in the east and low efficiency in the west. The unevenness of the spatial pattern of efficiency has been yearly weakened, and the degree of differentiation has decreased. The industrial water utilization efficiency in Shandong and Shanxi province was at a high level in the basin, with the multi-year average efficiency value exceeding 0.9. In 2019, the proportion of medium-high efficiency provinces in the basin increased from 44% to 78%, and all provinces except Qinghai and Gansu reached the medium-high efficiency level.