We performed thermoplastic forming (TPF) on FeCoNbB metallic glass ribbons with a supercooled liquid region exceeding 100 K, and found the sample after TPF is still completely amorphous. More importantly, the giant magnetoimpedance (GMI) effect was improved after the forming process: the maximum GMI ratio and sensitivity increased from 41% to 12.3%/Oe in the case of as-cast sample to 280% and 358.2%/Oe in the case of resulting sample after TPF, respectively. The hysteresis loops and domain patterns were subsequently studied, which revealed that the primary factor leading to the improvement of the GMI effect was the enhanced longitudinal magnetic anisotropy induced by the TPF process. We therefore assume that TPF is an effective way that improves the GMI effect, which differs from conventional annealing methods.