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Background Post-adolescent acne is a common skin disease faced by adults. However, whether air pollution (AP) serves as a risk factor for post-adolescent acne remains elusive. Aim To determine the relationship between short-term AP exposure (within 7 days) and outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne. Methods Daily outpatient visit data for post-adolescent acne and routinely AP data between 2010 and 2013 were collected from Xi’an, China. A generalized additive regression model was used to analyze the relationship between outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne and short-term ambient AP exposure. The gender-specific analyses were conducted as well. Results Totally, 27,190 outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne were included. The results revealed that a 10 μg/m 3 increase in PM 10 , SO 2 , and NO 2 at lag 0–7 day was associated with the increase of outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne at 0.84% (95% CI: 0.53%, 1.16%), 1.61% (95% CI: 0.12%, 3.10%), and 3.50% (95% CI: 1.60%, 5.40%), respectively. The significant positive associations of PM 10 , SO 2 , and NO 2 were found at both single-lag models and moving average models. The gender-specific analyses showed that the effect estimates of PM 10 was stronger for females than for males, while there was no observed gender difference in the effects of SO 2 and NO 2 . Conclusion Short-term exposure to AP was associated with increased outpatient visits for post-adolescent acne, especially for females in the effects of PM 10 .