Background: The burden of atrial fibrillation (AF) has been attractive recently and may be associated with stroke risk and mortality. Remote ischemic conditioning could reduce the incidence, inducibility and sustainability of AF. But the effects of chronic remote ischemic conditioning (CRIC) on atrial fibrillation burden in patients with pacemaker implanted are still unknown.Design: This was a single‑center, prospective, randomized, open-labeled clinical study.Methods: Sixty-six patients with permanent pacemakers were randomly divided into CRIC group and control group after 4 weeks screening. CRIC treatment was performed twice a day for 12 weeks. A remote ischemic conditioning protocol consisted of 4 × 5 min inflation/deflation of the blood pressure cuff applied in the upper arm to create intermittent arm ischemia. Pacemaker programming was performed for four times: before screening (-4-week), after screening and before randomization (0-week, baseline), 4-week and 12-week follow-up. Data including AF burden, longest duration of AF and cumulative numbers of atrial high-rate episodes (AHREs) were collected.Results: Sixty-one patients (31 patients in CRIC group and 30 patients in control group) completed the study. CRIC was well-tolerated by patients after 12 weeks treatment. The burden of AF in CRIC group was decreased significantly at 4-week compared with that at 0-week (14.7%±18.5% vs 17.0%±20.7%, p < 0.001), which further decreased at 12-week compared with that at 0-week (8.6%±10.2% vs 17.0%±20.7%, p < 0.001) and that at 4-week (8.6%±10.2% vs 14.7%±18.5%, p < 0.001), which was not observed in the control group. AF burden also reduced significantly after 12-week CRIC compared with that in control group (8.6%±10.2% vs 17.6%±19.5%, p = 0.013). Repeated measurement ANOVA showed that the changes of AF burden was associated with CRIC instead of time (p < 0.01). In addition, there were trends that longest duration of AF and cumulative numbers of AHREs were reduced after 12-week CRIC.Conclusions: This study suggests that a 12-week course of CRIC treatment could reduce AF burden in patients with permanent pacemakers, supporting widespread use of CRIC in the daily lives of these patients, which need to be verified in the future.Clinical Trial RegistrationRegistration name: Effects of remote ischemic conditioning on atrial fibrillation burden in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillationRegistration number: ChiCTR-IOR-17012666Registered 14 September 2017; URL: www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=21591