Wetlands can contribute to fisheries by providing habitat for economically important species, as well as via the export of nutrients to the food web. However, there is insufficient understanding about the extent to which wetland restoration benefit fisheries. Here, we reviewed the literature on the approaches used to measure fisheries outcomes in the restoration of wetland ecosystems, and used a meta-analysis to test for fisheries enhancement by restoration projects. Fisheries outcomes have mainly been assessed for species that utilise the habitats directly and have been mainly inferred by measuring difference in stock. Much less attention has been paid to secondary fisheries enhancements food web subsidies through which the benefits to fisheries can accrue in areas that are distant to the location of restoration. These results highlight the need to undertake measurements of fisheries enhancement resulting from wetland restoration that can be achieved within the limited monitoring budget common to restoration practices. Overall, restored sites had similar densities than control natural sites and degraded control sites (i.e. not restored), but these results were highly variable, indicating that fisheries outcomes resulting from restoration might be dependent on the restoration method, environmental context and/or landscape setting.