PurposeThis study aimed to explore the survival significance of surgery and age on the prognosis of patients with primary trachea malignancies.MethodsThe entire cohort of 637 patients with primary malignant trachea tumors was used to perform the main analyses. The data of those patients were from a public database. Overall survival (OS) curves were drawn by the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by the Log-rank test. The univariable and multivariable Cox regression analyses calculated the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for overall mortality. The propensity-score matching analysis was used to reduce the selection bias.ResultsAge, surgery, histological type, N classification, M classification, marital status, and tumor grading were identified as independent prognostic factors after eliminating confounding factors. The results of the Kaplan-Meier method revealed that patients with age < 65 had a survival advantage over those with age ≥ 65 (HR = 1.908, 95% CI 1.549–2.348,P< 0.001). The 5-year OS rates were 28% and 8% in the group with age < 65 and age ≥ 65, respectively (P< 0.001). Cases with surgery had better survival over patients without surgery (HR = 0.372, 95% CI 0.265–0.522,P< 0.001). Compared with patients who did not undergo operations, patients with surgery had a higher median survival time (20 vs. 174 months). For patients with surgery, young age was considered a survival-promoting factor (HR 2.484; 95% CI 1.238–4.983,P= 0.010).ConclusionWe suggested that age and surgery were the independent prognostic factors in patients with primary malignant trachea tumors. Besides, age serves as an essential indicator for evaluating the prognosis of postoperative patients.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13019-023-02340-z.