The Greywater footprint (GWF) is the natural water volume required to dilute pollutants to a standard concentration, to achieve the unification of water quality and quantity, and is one of the important methods to evaluate regional water pollution. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object, this paper calculated the GWF of 11 provinces in the region from 2005 to 2015, analyzed and summarized the changes and characteristics of GWF of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in time, space, social and economic dimensions, and used the driving factor model of GWF constructed by LMDI decomposition method to analyze the effects of the population, economic and technical driving factors on the change of grey water footprint. The results showed as follows. (1) From 2005 to 2015, the average grey water footprint of the Yangtze River Economic Belt reached 2.4 trillion m³, with agricultural sources, urban living sources and industrial sources accounting for 73%, 21% and 6%, respectively. In terms of distribution, the grey water footprint of provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is less in the east and more in the west (2) Under the same condition of total water resources, the water pollution pressure index of Zhejiang and Jiangxi is relatively small, about 1.1 and Shanghai is at the high level of water pollution pressure index, which can reach 14 .(3) Along the Yangtze River, the grey water footprint efficiency increases gradually from the upper reaches to the lower reaches. The average grey water footprint efficiency of Yunnan province in the upper reaches is about 2.7 ¥/m³, and the average grey water footprint efficiency of Shanghai in the lower reaches 36¥/m³ (4) Economic factors and technical factors played a major positive and negative driving role on the grey water footprint, accounting for 49% and -48%, respectively.