BackgroundVaccination is proved to be one of the most effective and efficient way to prevent illness and reduce health inequality. Studies about association between vaccination inequalities in the childhood and awareness of basic public health services program among internal migrants in China are lacking. In this study, we aimed to explore the association between migrants’ vaccination status between 0 and 6 years old and their awareness of the National Basic Public Health Services (BPHSs) project in China.MethodsWe included 10,013 respondents aged 15 years old or above of eight provinces from 2017 Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey in China, a nationwide cross-sectional study. Univariate and multivariable logistic regressions were used to assess vaccination inequalities and the awareness of public health information.ResultsOnly 64.8% migrants were vaccinated in their childhood, which is far below the goal of national requirement of 100% vaccination. This also indicated the vaccination inequalities among migrants. Female, the middle-aged, married or having a relationship, the highly educated and the healthy population had higher awareness of this project than others. Both univariate and multivariate logistic regressions showed greatly significant association between vaccination status and some vaccines. Specifically, after adding convariates, the results showed that there were significant associations between the vaccination rates of eight recommended vaccines in the childhood and their awareness of BPHSs project (all p values < 0.001), including HepB vaccine (OR: 1.28; 95%CI: 1.19, 1.37), HepA vaccine (OR: 1.27; 95%CI: 1.15, 1.41), FIn vaccine (OR: 1.28; 95%CI: 1.16, 1.45), JE vaccine (OR: 1.14; 95%CI: 1.04, 1.27), TIG vaccine (OR: 1.27; 95%CI: 1.05, 1.47), DTaP vaccine (OR: 1.30; 95%CI: 1.11–1.53), MPSV vaccine (OR: 1.26; 95%CI: 1.07–1.49), HF vaccine (OR: 1.32; 95%CI: 1.11, 1.53), except for RaB vaccine (OR: 1.07; 95%CI: 0.89, 1.53).ConclusionsThe vaccination inequalities exist among migrants. There is a strong relationship between the vaccination status in the childhood and the awareness rate of BPHSs project among migrants. From our findings we could know that the promotion of vaccination rates of the disadvantaged population such as the internal migrants or other minority population can help them increase the awareness of free public health services, which was proved to be beneficial for health equity and effectiveness and could promote public health in the future.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-16147-z.