Soil enzymes play an important role in soil nutrient cycling and reflecting soil function. Until now, the artificial biological soil crusts (BSCs) have been one of the useful sand-fixation technologies, which significantly improved desert eco-environments. However, how artificial BSCs did affect soil enzyme activity and the corresponding recovery rates in desert areas? In this study, by studying the soil enzyme activity (sucrase, cellulase, amylase, and catalase) and corresponding BSCs characteristics (chlorophyll a and exopolysaccharides) on the topsoil (0-2 cm) under artificially cyanobacterial crusts, naturally-developed cyanobacterial crusts and shifting sand in the southeastern edge of the Tengger Desert. We aim to elucidate changes in soil enzyme activity, their recovery rates, and even the relationship between soil enzyme activity and the characteristics of artificial cyanobacterial crusts. The results showed that sucrase (13.03-20.51 mg d^-1 g^-1), cellulase (45.60-47.20 mg d^-1 g^-1), catalase (12.43-23.31 μmol d^-1 g^-1) and amylase activity (91.04-153.93 mg d^-1 g^-1) in the artificial cyanobacterial crust surface soil, which were significantly higher than the four soil enzyme activities in the shifting sand (1.52 mg d^-1 g^-1, 43.05 mg d^-1 g^-1, 7.08 μmol d^-1 g^-1 and 64.77 mg d^-1 g^-1; P<0.05). By contrast to naturally-developed cyanobacterial crusts (17.60 mg d^-1 g^-1, 46.70 mg d^-1 g^-1, 23.87 μmol d^-1 g^-1 and 246.22 mg d^-1 g^-1), the artificial cyanobacterial crusts accelerated the recovery of soil enzymes, of which, the highest recover rate was shown in sucrase and cellulase (100.0%), followed by soil catalase (61.7%), soil amylase activities recovered the slowest (24.9%). In addition, the results of regression analysis showed that the content of chlorophyll a and exopolysaccharide in the artificial was significantly positively correlated with the activities of the four soil enzymes (P<0.05). The above results highlighted that artificial cyanobacterial crusts significantly promoted the increase of surface soil enzyme activities and accelerated their corresponding recovery rate, which provided an important basis for evaluating the role of artificial cyanobacterial crusts in the restoration of desert ecosystems.