Under the policy of balancing the occupation and compensation of cultivated land, rapid urbanization is highly likely to force cultivated land to climb up the mountain, thereby having a profound impact on regional ecosystem services. However, existing research has mostly focused on the horizontal spatial transfer of cultivated land, while neglected the study of the phenomenon of cultivated land slope climbing. In view of this, byusing multi-source data, such as land use, meteorology, hydrology, and socio-economic factors, and based on Sen trend analysis, factor decomposition method and InVEST model, this study explored the driving factors of cultivated land slope climbing phenomenon in the Yangtze River Basin from 1990 to 2020 and its impact on ecosystem services. The research results indicated that: ① The cultivated land in the Yangtze River Basin exhibited a slope climbing phenomenon, of which unstable cultivated land slope climbing more severely, with a total increase of 2.09°.② The occupation of construction land and the cultivated land reclamation were the main factors that exacerbated the slope climbing of unstable cultivated land. On the contrary, the marginalization of cultivated land was the main factor that inhibited the slope climbing of unstable cultivated land. ③ The phenomenon of cultivated land climbing in the Yangtze River basin has resulted in a total loss of 4.14×10⁸ tons of regional carbon storage, 1.44×10⁸ tons of soil conservation, 0.84×10⁸ tons of water production, 4.33% of habitat quality, and 1.76% of integrated ecosystem services。④ The climbing phenomenon caused by cultivated land reclamation decreased the comprehensive ecosystem services by 0.11%, while the cultivated land climbing phenomenon caused by the encroachment of construction land led to the decrease of the comprehensive ecosystem services by 33.37%. The research results are expected to provide innovative thinking and policy recommendations for the sustainable utilization of regional cultivated land resources.