Background Whether T2 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma should be subclassified remains controversial. We aimed to investigate the impact of the depth of muscularis propria invasion on nodal status and survival outcomes. Methods We identified patients with pT2 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma who underwent primary surgery from January 2009 to June 2017. Clinical data were extracted from prospectively maintained databases. Tumor muscularis propria invasion was stratified into superficial or deep. Binary logistic regression was used to determine risk factors for lymph node metastases. The impact of the depth of muscularis propria invasion on survival was investigated using Kaplan‒Meier analysis and a Cox proportional hazard regression model. Results A total of 750 patients from three institutes were investigated. The depth of muscularis propria invasion (odds ratio OR: 3.95, 95% confidence interval CI: 2.46–6.35; p < 0.001) was correlated with lymph node metastases using logistic regression. T substage (hazard ratio HR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.05–1.79; p < 0.001) and N status (HR: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.05–2.17; p < 0.001) were independent risk factors in multivariate Cox regression analysis. The deep muscle invasion was associated with worse overall survival (HR: 1.52, 95% CI: 1.19–1.94; p = 0.001) than superficial, specifically in T2N0 patients (HR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.08–1.94; p = 0.035). Conclusions We found that deep muscle invasion was associated with significantly worse outcomes and recommended the substaging of pT2 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in routine pathological examination.