Corbicula fluminea is a benthic shellfish with substantially commercial and ecological value that is extensively dispersed in China. In recent years, the wild stocks of C. fluminea have been decreasing rapidly. Understanding the potential distribution of C. fluminea in China could be useful for their conservation and rational utilization. Based on 136 recorded points and 8 environmental factors in China, the MaxEnt model optimized by the ENMeval package and biasfile were used to predict the potential distribution of C. fluminea under six climate scenarios in the current and future (2041-2060 and 2081-2100, respectively). The Jackknife test, permutation importance, and environmental factor contribution rates were combined to examine the main factors determining the potential distribution of modern C. fluminea, and to compare the predicted distribution differences under future climate scenarios. The results showed that the optimized MaxEnt model was very accurate, with an average AUC (area under curve) value of 0.900±0.037 and an average AUC_DIFF value of 0.019. The main environmental factors affecting the potential distribution of C. fluminea were elevation, temperature (annual mean temperature and temperature annual range), and precipitation (annual precipitation). The overall area of potential distribution of C. fluminea was 188.33×10⁴ km², with the majority of it concentrated in the Yangtze River basin, the Haihe River basin, the Huaihe River basin, the Pearl River basin, southeast coastal region, the Yellow River basin and the Bohai Bay coastal region. Under the six future climate scenarios, the main potential distribution areas of C. fluminea tended to move northwards and westwards, and the potential habitat area would decrease significantly under the SSP245 scenario, whereas it would increase and then decrease under the SSP126 and SSP585 scenarios, implying that the potential distribution of C. fluminea in China would be at risk of contraction under climate change.