Background Immune checkpoint inhibitors have improved the objective response rate and survival of melanoma patients. However, there are still many melanoma patients suffering from disease progression due to primary or secondary immune checkpoint inhibitor resistance, as is observed in the failure of anti-PD1/PD-L1 therapy. It is urgent to determine the function of PD-1/PD-L1 expression in melanoma and its associated pathways to enhance the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapies. Methods A cohort of 133 patients with histologically confirmed melanoma from Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute & Hospital were included in this study. We performed immunohistochemical staining to detect the expression of MIIP, HDAC6 and PD-L1. Kaplan-Meier and log-rank test were used for survival analyze. As for vitro, Western blot was used to verify the signaling pathway that MIIP regulates PD-L1 expression. Results Our present data demonstrate MIIP expression was decreased in melanoma and that the negative expression of MIIP was correlated with worse overall survival. We also found the positive expression of HDAC6, a molecule that is downstream of MIIP, had a positive trend with decreased overall survival, because the p value was not statistically significant. At the same time, the positive expression of PD-L1, a crucial costimulatory molecule, was associated with decreased overall survival. Furthermore, there was a positive association between HDAC6 and PD-L1 protein expression (p<0.01). In vitro experiment, we found that increasing MIIP led to decreased HDAC6, pSTAT3, and PD-L1 expression. Knocking down MIIP led to increased HDAC6, pSTAT3, and PD-L1 expression. Combining the published results, showing that HDAC6 can regulate PD-L1 expression through STAT3, our present data suggest that MIIP inhibits the expression of PD-L1 by downregulating HDAC6 in melanoma. Most importantly, methods for targeting MIIP-HDAC6-PD-L1 pathways, such as treatment with HDAC6 inhibitors, might indicate a new therapeutic approach for enhancing immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies in melanoma. Conclusions Our findings highlight the immunomodulatory effects of MIIP in the inhibition of PD-L1 expression by downregulating HDAC6 in melanoma. Our data provide a sensible framework to consider the targeting of the MIIP-HDAC6-PD-L1 pathway.