Based on the sample of listed companies from 2006 to 2020, this paper studies whether and how short selling affects cash dividends. We find that compared with firms that can not be short sold, firms that can be short sold improve significantly in the willingness, scale and steadiness to distribute cash dividends after being short sold. Mechanism test show that the promotion of cash dividends is more pronounced in firms with more severe agency conflicts and fewer investment opportunities, which supports the agency cost mechanism.Meanwhile, the promotion of cash dividends is more pronounced in firms with stronger capability and are more urgent to transmit the signal to the capital market, which supports the signal transmission mechanism. Further evidences show that firms with insufficient cash flow are not inclined to use high proportion stock splits as a substitute for cash dividends while dealing with short selling pressure. Furthermore, short selling shows a restraining effect on the prevailing standard compliant dividends in the capital market, especially for firms with no demand for refinancing. The study shows that short selling have promoted the distribution of cash dividends, which means the short selling can be a market-oriented path for cash dividend regulation in the capital market.