Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is an indispensable technology for achieving carbon neutrality, which is costly. Therefore, this paper investigates the effects of adopting CCUS on provincial carbon emission efficiency and economic efficiency from the perspective of energy cost, based on economic data of 30 provincial administrative regions in China from 2010 to 2019, with Jiangsu, Hebei and Gansu as the research objects. The results show that the implementation of CCUS increases the carbon emission efficiency of the three provinces; the adoption of CCS to achieve the same carbon capture ratio results in the largest increase of carbon emission efficiency and the largest decrease of economic efficiency in Jiangsu Province. Using the geological utilization method, the economic efficiency of Hebei and Gansu increased slightly while that of Jiangsu province decreased slightly under the cost of capturing 270 Yuan/tCO2. the impact of CCUS implementation on the carbon emission efficiency and economic efficiency of each province was related to the unit energy cost, GDP and carbon emission of each province.