A study was carried out in Hubei Province to evaluate the effects of phosphorus (P) fertilization rates on yield, economic benefit, P use efficiency and optimal P recommendation rate of cotton at 14 tested sites. The results revealed that the yield and profit of cotton significantly increased when P supplied moderately. The main results were as follows: ①Compared with the treatment without P fertilizer, the cotton yield of P application increased to 100 - 896 kg/hm2 for all treatments with an average increase of 347 kg/hm2. The increment rate ranged from 2.1% to 25.2% with the average rate of 10.4% for P application. ②The average net profit of the P application was 1 764 Yuan/hm2 and the value to cost ratio was 6.61.③The average partial factor productivity of applied P (PFPP) and agronomic P use efficiency (APUE) were P2O5 51.27 kg/kg and P2O5 4.15 kg/kg respectively. ④According to fertilizer response equations, the economical P application rate ranged from 42.9 kg/hm2 to 183.2 kg/hm2, and the average rate was 112.7 kg/hm2. It showed that the economical P application rate had a significantly negative correlation with soil available P level, and the economical P application rate of cotton could be gained through the equation y ﹦273.42 - 78.488 ln(x) (here y means applied rate of P2O5, x means soil available P content) in Hubei Province.