Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of intravenous thrombolysis bridging endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) in patients with acute cardioembolic stroke. Methods We retrospectively included patients with cardioembolic stroke who were admitted within 24 h after onset of stroke symptoms and had received EVT in the Department of Neurology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University between January 2017 and December 2021. Based on whether they had received intravenous thrombolysis, the patients were divided into bridging therapy group and direct EVT group. The primary outcome was unfavorable outcome by 3 months, defined as a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 3 to 6. The secondary outcomes included intracranial hemorrhage during hospitalization and 3-month death. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess the treatment effect on the primary outcome after adjusting for confounding factors. Results A total of 285 patients were enrolled. Among them, 174 (61.1%) were female, the median age was 74 years (interquartile range 64-80 years), and the median time from stroke onset to admission was 4.0 h (interquartile range 3.0-5.0 h). Compared to patients in the direct EVT group (n=202), patients in the bridging therapy group (n=83) had a lower rate of unfavorable functional outcome (55.4% vs 68.3%, P=0.039) by 3 months, while the incidences of intracranial hemorrhage (47.0% vs. 39.6%, P=0.251) and 3-month death (20.5% vs. 30.7%, P=0.080) were comparable between the two groups. After adjusting for confounding factors, the bridging therapy improved 3-month functional outcomes over direct EVT [odds ratio=0.482, 95% confidence interval (0.249, 0.934), P=0.031]. Conclusion In patients with acute cardioembolic stroke, intravenous thrombolysis bridging endovascular treatment can significantly improve 3-month functional outcomes without increasing the risk of intracranial hemorrhage.