Based on the panel data of counties in Wuling Mountain area of Hunan province from 2010 to 2021, this paper comprehensively applies Theil coefficient, Tapio decoupling model and Granger causality test to analyze the decoupling relationship between tourism development level and urban-rural income gap. The results show that during the study period, the level of tourism development and urban-rural income gap in Wuling Mountain area showed trends of fluctuating growth and continuous narrowing respectively. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of county units with a level of tourism development greater than the area’s average has decreased. Before 2019, the main decoupling type between tourism development level and urban-rural income gap in Wuling Mountain area of Hunan province was strong decoupling; during the COVID 19 pandemic, there was a sharp increase in the number of county units with weak negative decoupling. There is a long-term equilibrium relationship between the tourism development level and the urban-rural income gap in this area, and there is a one-way Granger causal relationship between tourism development level and urban-rural income gap. Accordingly, it is recommended to strengthen horizontal links between counties, establish and improve mechanism for linking tourism interests, leverage the leading role of strong tourism counties in order to promote the decoupling of the level of tourism development from the urban-rural income gap in Wuling Mountain area of Hunan province.