Statins are lipid-lowering therapeutics with favorable anti-inflammatory profiles and have been proposed as an adjunct therapy for COVID-19. However, statins may increase the risk of SARS-CoV-2 viral entry by inducing ACE2 expression. Here, we performed a retrospective study on 13,981 patients with COVID-19 in Hubei Province, China, among which 1,219 received statins. Based on a mixed-effect Cox model after propensity score-matching, we found that the risk for 28-day all-cause mortality was 5.2% and 9.4% in the matched statin and non-statin groups, respectively, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.58. The statin use-associated lower risk of mortality was also observed in the Cox time-varying model and marginal structural model analysis. These results give support for the completion of ongoing prospective studies and randomized controlled trials involving statin treatment for COVID-19, which are needed to further validate the utility of this class of drugs to combat the mortality of this pandemic. Display omitted •Statin treatment among 13,981 patients with COVID-19 was retrospectively studied•Statin use in this cohort was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality•Adding an ACE inhibitor or an ARB did not affect statin-associated outcome in the cohort•The benefit of statins among this cohort may be due to immunomodulatory benefits Statins have anti-inflammatory benefits and were suggested as an adjunct therapy for COVID-19. But statins may increase the expression of ACE2, the receptor for SARS-CoV-2. Here, Zhang et al. retrospectively analyzed 13,981 COVID-19 cases and found that in-hospital statin use is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality.