Drought-tolerant species play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem services in arid and semi-arid regions wherein subject to rapid climate change. However, how future climate change affect the distribution of drought-tolerant plants with different growth forms (e.g., herb and woody) remains largely unknown. Here, we used the MaxEnt model to simulate the potential species distribution under current conditions, and predicted the future species distribution of 82 common drought-tolerant plants in China under two time periods (2041-2060 and 2081-2100) and three climate change scenarios (SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585) in the future. We found that the western and northern regions of China are hotspots for drought-tolerant plant distribution. Compared with other predictors, aridity index (AI) explained the largest portion of variation (45%) in the distribution patterns of drought-tolerant plant plants. Climate change would change the distribution of drought-tolerant plants, with more than 50% of the species showing a trend of shrinking ranges in China. For both herb and woody plants, the highest turnover values were observed under SSP585 for the period 2081-2100, reaching 37.67% and 29.08%, respectively. Our results highlighted that herb and woody plants respond differently to climate change stresses, with herb plants projected to greatly expand their ranges in the future. These insights are vital for evaluating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and informing the development of effective adaptation strategies.