Based on the institutional background that China's listed companies fully implement the new auditing standards and auditors increase the disclosure of key audit matters, this paper examines the impact of policy burden on auditors’ risk response decisions by using the data of A-share non-financial listed companies from 2017 to 2020.This study found that the higher the level of policy burden, the more likely it is for auditors to reduce audit risk through disclosure of key audit matters, which means more key audit items in the audit report and the more detailed the disclosure. Operational risk and agency costs are two channels through which policy burdens affect key audit matters. In areas with stronger labor protection and higher degree of marketization, the positive correlation between policy burdens and key audit matters has increased. While good internal controls reduce the positive correlation between policy burdens and key audit matters. The results show that policy burden is closely related to client risk, and the auditors’ risk response decision takes into account the negative impact of policy burdens on business operations.