Human activities lead to global climate change, such as the greenhouse effect, heat island effect, global warming, glacier melting, sea-level rise, and so on. Among them, the global warming caused by the increase of greenhouse gas emissions has a great impact on human production and life. To control greenhouse gas emissions, many countries are exploring various ways to reduce carbon emissions, and hope to achieve the goal of "carbon neutrality" in the planned time. China is also one of them, our country has formulated a medium-and long-term plan to achieve carbon neutrality and is exploring ways to achieve this goal, such as adjusting the industrial and energy consumption structure, and changing the way of production and life. With the development of China's economy, regional trade interactions are frequent, and reducing carbon emissions through optimizing trade patterns should not be ignored. However, such studies are relatively few at present, and the carbon-neutral characteristics of trade in each province are not clear yet. This paper, based on the multi-regional input-output model, carbon-neutral model, and carbon ecological footprint model, analyzed the spatial distribution of carbon footprint, carbon transfer characteristics, and carbon ecological carrying capacity surplus of 30 Chinese provinces in 2017. Our results show that (1) provinces with larger populations or richer economies have larger carbon footprints, such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Henan, while in the provinces of western and northeastern China, the carbon footprints of 10000 yuan GDP are relatively larger. Virtual carbon is mainly transferred to economically affluent provinces. (2) For different provinces and sectors, the carbon-neutral characteristics of trade vary considerably. For the provinces, the trade reduced the carbon footprint in Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Ningxia, and Xingjiang, but the degree of carbon neutrality is relatively low (< 20%). As far as the sectors are concerned, the carbon-neutral feature of the construction sector is the most obvious, especially in the northeastern. (3) There are significant differences in the surplus of carbon ecological carrying capacity among provinces. Specifically, the regions with larger carbon ecological carrying capacity surplus are mainly distributed in the agricultural developed provinces, such as Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin, Shandong, and so on (>10×10⁸ t), while Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong are in deficit. In the future, when formulating relevant policies, we should comprehensively consider the characteristics of inter-provincial carbon transfer, reasonably allocate carbon emission quota, and ensure the smooth operation of the carbon emission trading market.