The article utilizes inter-provincial panel data from China from 2003 to 2015 to examine the impact of quality infrastructure on the upgrading of manufacturing foreign trade, focusing on manufacturing export scale and export sophistication. The research findings suggest that quality infrastructure significantly promotes the upgrading of manufacturing foreign trade, with technology-oriented quality infrastructure having a more pronounced effect than general quality infrastructure. This conclusion holds after conducting various endogenous tests. The above influence exhibits heterogeneity across times, regions, and firm sizes. Quality infrastructure drives the upgrading of manufacturing foreign trade through cost reduction effect and technical diffusion effect. The cost reduction effect promotes the expansion of manufacturing export scale by reducing transaction costs, while the technical diffusion effect enhances export sophistication by accelerating the diffusion of new technologies. As China’s manufacturing exports evolve in terms of export sophistication and scale, the study reveals that the promotion effect of general quality infrastructure on upgrading the manufacturing sector’s foreign trade follows an inverted U-shaped trajectory. In contrast, technology-oriented quality infrastructure demonstrates a consistent upward trend.