Introduction: Orthodontic elastomeric chains are used in many orthodontic treatments. However, their activation or the action of external factors such as the daily use of mouthwashes can contribute to the increase of force decay causing a loss of effectiveness. The objective of this systematic review and a meta-analysis was to analyse the influence of the most widely used mouthwashes and their mainly components on the force decay of the orthodontic elastomeric chains.Material and Methods: A systematic search of the literature was performed in the electronic databases of PubMed, Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), Scopus, EMBASE and Web of Science, as well as grey literature (Opengrey). No limit was placed on publication year and research was done up to June 2021. Controlled clinical trials, randomized clinical trials (RCTs), cohort studies, case–control studies, cross-sectional studies, multicentre studies, and in vitro studies were there was an exposure of orthodontic elastomeric chains to certain mouthwashes and their main components were included. For the quantitative analysis, studies were analysed with a mixed-effect (random effect) meta-regresion model, with beta coefficients and R2 values. I2 index and Q and Egger tests were used to find heterogeneity among studies. Results: 14 articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected for qualitative analysis. The same 14 articles were selected for the quantitative synthesis (meta-analysis). The results of the meta-analysis showed that, in general, all the mouthwashes were associated with a greater force decay than the control agents at 24 hours, at 7, 14, 21 and at 28 days. When comparing the different mouthwashes, the results showed that at 7 days (p=0.005) significant differences were found in the force decay among them. Mouthwashes containing alcohol had a significantly higher percentage of degradation than those containing chlorhexidine 0.2%, sodium fluoride (NaF) or Persica. On the contrary, in the measurements performed at 24 hours (p=0.200), 14 days (p=0.076), 21 days (p=0.120) and 28 days (p=0.778) no differences in the strength among the different mouthwashes were found.Conclusion: In general, mouthwashes tend to increase the speed of force decay and have a negative impact in the physical properties of orthodontic elastomeric chains, resulting in a loss of effectiveness. For mouthwashes such as Listerine® and those containing alcohol this difference can be higher than for mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine, NaF or bleaching agents.