Colonial breeding is a common breeding system in many avian species. Its ubiquity suggests that in the evolutionary past various benefits associated with colonial breeding often outweighed the potential costs. I have investigated the association between one fitness component, namely annual adult survival, and colonial breeding. Using a global dataset of survival probabilities (2431 survival estimates from 1170 species including 213 colonial species), I found that annual adult apparent survival was greater in colonial than in solitary breeding species in both hemispheres after including phylogeny and considering potential ecological confounders such as body mass and latitude. Excluding Procellariiformes, a clade of birds with unique features (all marine colonial species laying single‐egg clutches), did not alter the conclusions. This was also the case when excluding species living year‐long on islands, which are typically non‐colonial and long‐lived, and when excluding studies where survival estimates did not account for recapture/resighting probabilities, which might differ according to breeding system. Greater annual adult apparent survival is therefore a robust feature of colonial breeding in birds, which sheds light on the evolution of this common breeding system. Future studies are needed across species to determine whether the survival advantage of colonial breeding extends to nestlings and juveniles.