Nutrient resorption is an important internal-strategy for plant to retain nutrients. However, the spatial patterns of nitrogen and phosphorus resorption efficiencies (NRE, PRE) in national scales are still unexplored. In this study, we first estimated the magnitudes of NRE and PRE, and explored their spatial patterns across China's forests based on the dataset from a nation-wide field campaign from 2011 to 2015. Mean NRE was estimated to be 35.64% and higher than mean PRE (43.72%). The main effects of forest type and the interactions between climatic zone and land use were significant for both NRE and PRE. In addition, NRE and PRE exhibited different patterns along climatic gradients and nutrient status. Our results can shed light on the nutrient strategies of China's forests under future environmental changes and the results could be used in global biogeochemical models.