In this paper, China’s A-share non-financial listed companies from 2011 to 2020 are selected as the initial research sample. This paper constructs the strategic innovation tendency index to test whether the local talent housing expenditure promotes enterprise innovation with high quality. The main conclusions are: local talent housing expenditure significantly promotes the innovation of enterprises. The results of the internal mechanism test show that the number of R&D personnel plays a mediating role in the relationship between local talent housing support expenditure and corporate innovation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the housing expenditure of state-owned enterprises and local talents with higher administrative level significantly promotes enterprise innovation. From the perspective of enterprise innovation quality, the local talent housing expenditure has a sustainable effect and substantially promotes the increase of invention patents of enterprises.