Ecological restoration is a major strategy to reverse the ecological degradation and biodiversity loss caused by human activities and to ensure a sustainable supply of ecosystem services. Since the 1990s, China has implemented a series of ecological restoration projects in key ecologically vulnerable regions (Windy and sandy regions of northern China, Loess Plateau, Arid regions in northwest china, Tibetan Plateau, and karst regions). Scientifically and reasonably evaluating the comprehensive benefits of ecological restoration in key ecologically vulnerable regions has important theoretical and practical significance for further optimization and adjustment of ecological restoration measures. However, due to the lack of a unified index system, research on ecological restoration is limited in terms of comprehensive and long-term assessment and monitoring of ecological restoration benefits in key ecologically vulnerable regions. As a result, there is an urgent need for a systematic, scientific, and comprehensive evaluation index system of comprehensive benefits of ecological restoration in ecologically vulnerable regions of China. We investigated five key ecologically vulnerable regions in China, and based on the cascade conceptual framework of "ecological restoration-ecosystem structure-quality-services-benefits" and guided by the proposed principles and methods for screening indices, we constructed a scientific, systematic, and standardized evaluation index system of comprehensive benefits of ecological restoration. The results of this study are expected to provide theoretical and technical support for future evaluation studies and management of application of ecological restoration in key ecologically vulnerable regions.