How to effectively enhance urban economic resilience at the policy level is a topic worth paying attention to. A staggered difference-in-difference model was employed to integrate innovative city construction, industrial structure, and urban economic resilience into a unified framework. Using data from 283 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2010 to 2022, the impact of innovative city construction on urban economic resilience was explored, and the mediating effect of industrial structure upgrading was examined. The findings indicate that innovative city construction significantly promotes urban economic resilience, and the conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis shows that innovative city construction significantly promotes the upgrading of industrial structure, thereby boosting local economic resilience. The impact path includes two aspects: promoting industrial structure upgrading and rationalization, with the latter being the primary mechanism. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect is more significant in western cities, non resource-based cities, and large-scale cities.