Plant growth is often limited by high salt concentration and nutrient deficiency in soil of coastal wetlands. Salt-dilution and salt-exclusion are two common strategies by which halophytes adapt to salty environment, and both strategies can affect plant trade-off of water and nutrient use efficiency. In order to understand plant nutrient strategies and trade-offs between water and nutrient use efficiency in different halophytes, we investigated two common halophytes including salt-dilution and salt-exclusion halophyte in Yancheng, Jiangsu, China. We also analyzed the relationship between foliar δ¹³C, which is a direct measure for water use efficiency (WUE), and main nutrition elements stoichiometry such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) in different halophytes. The results showed that the foliar N/P ratio of halophytes was 15.3, which was lower than the average value of the global terrestrial plants, indicating a co-limitation by N and P for halophyte growth in coastal wetlands. For two types of halophytes, δ¹³C showed significantly positive correlations with foliar N and P. These correlations indicated that plants in poor environment may be profit N-related and P-related photosynthetic capacity strategies. In addition, salt-exclusion halophyte showed the positive correlations between δ¹³C and K⁺, suggesting a K⁺-related osmotic adjustment strategy for taking up sufficient water while containing salt toxicity in plants. Furthermore, both types of halophytes showed a negative correlation between δ¹³C and C/N. These results suggested that both salt-dilution and salt-exclusion halophytes were adapted to salty soil through a high WUE at the expense of decreased nitrogen use efficiency in the coastal wetlands of eastern China. A negative correlation between δ¹³C and C/P and the enhanced foliar phosphorus concentration were observed in salt-dilution halophyte, which suggested that these plants could improve C sequestration and biomass production by increasing P use efficiency in the habitat with low water availability. Our study can contribute to providing a baseline information for the restoration and conservation of coastal wetlands.