Objective To systematically evaluate the clinical effects of remote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC) in elective vascular surgery. Methods Electronic searches were conducted in The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, VIP Database, and the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM). Relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were screened according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of 15 studies involving 1,382 patients were included. The meta-analysis results showed no statistically significant difference between RIPC and non-RIPC groups in reducing perioperative mortality in elective vascular surgery. There were also no statistically significant differences between the two groups of vascular surgery patients regarding the incidence of myocardial infarction, renal injury, postoperative stroke, postoperative length of hospital stay, duration of surgery or total anesthesia time, or the incidence of limb injury, arrhythmia, heart failure, and pneumonia. Conclusion For patients undergoing elective vascular surgery, there are no significant differences between RIPC and non-RIPC in terms of perioperative mortality and other clinical endpoint outcomes.