Facing the increasing pressure of export trade restrictions, it is of great practical significance to improve the export survival probability of China’s private enterprises. This paper systematically studies the effects, channels and consequences of capital allocation distortion on the export survival time and survival probability of private enterprises in China. The results of this paper show that the entry and exit rate of private enterprises in export market are higher than that of state-owned enterprises, and the export survival rate of private enterprises four years later greatly reduced. When the degree of capital allocation distortion grows, the probability of private enterprises exiting from the export market rises, and the survival time becomes shorter. From the perspective of driving factors, the improvement of total factor productivity and the decrease of capital intensity are important channels for the distortion of capital allocation to reduce the export survival rate of private enterprises. The analysis of heterogeneity shows that the increase of capital allocation distortion has a greater promoting effect on the export risk of coastal cities, capital intensive and private enterprises after 2002.