Objectives Conducting in-depth research on the impact of national park ecotourism on the income of surrounding community farmers is of great significance for balancing community development, farmers' livelihoods, and natural resource conservation.

Methods Based on questionnaire survey data of typical community farmers around national parks, this study employed propensity score matching method to empirically analyze the heterogeneous impact of farmers' income under different ecotourism modes, and tested the balance of the results.

Results The results indicated that ecotourism helped to increase farmers' income. Following the implementation of propensity score matching, the income status of the experimental group of farmers was found to be superior to that of the control group. The impact of the leisure vacation mode on the income of farmers was found to be the most significant, followed by the picking sightseeing and folk village modes. The influence of the rural tourism mode, however, was relatively small. In terms of the absolute value of farmers' income, the modes of picking sightseeing, and leisure vacation were relatively high, while the modes of rural tourism and folk villages were comparatively diminished. The propensity score matching results also indicated that there were selective biases and endogenous interference in the decision-making of farmers participating in ecotourism, which may lead to underestimation or misjudgment of project effectiveness evaluation. This study innovatively used the propensity score matching method to effectively reduce selection bias and endogeneity interference, thereby providing a novel perspective for accurately evaluating the income effects of ecotourism. The study revealed the true impact of ecotourism on farmers' income, providing empirical evidence for the optimization of ecotourism models in national parks.

Conclusions Ecotourism had a positive effect on increasing the income of farmers in the surrounding communities of national parks. Therefore, when promoting the construction of national parks, the selection of ecotourism models should be given full consideration, and the income effects of farmers should be scientifically evaluated to promote the improvement of community farmers' interests and the future development of national parks.