Abstract Using reanalysis datasets and numerical simulations, the relationship between the stratospheric Arctic vortex (SAV) and the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) on decadal time scales was investigated. A significant in-phase relationship between the PDO and SAV on decadal time scales during 1950–2014 is found, that is, the North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) cooling (warming) associated with the positive (negative) PDO phases is closely related to the strengthening (weakening) of the SAV. This decadal relationship between the North Pacific SST and SAV is different from their relationship on subdecadal time scales. Observational and modeling results both demonstrate that the decadal variation in the SAV is strongly affected by the North Pacific SSTs related to the PDO via modifying the upward propagation of planetary wavenumber-1 waves from the troposphere to the stratosphere. The decreased SSTs over the North Pacific tend to result in a deepened Aleutian low along with a strengthened jet stream over the North Pacific, which excites a weakened western Pacific pattern and a strengthened Pacific–North American pattern. These tropospheric circulation anomalies are in accordance with the decreased refractive index (RI) at middle and high latitudes in the northern stratosphere during the positive PDO phase. The increased RI at high latitudes in the upper troposphere impedes the planetary wavenumber-1 wave from propagating into the stratosphere, and in turn strengthens the SAV. The responses of the RI to the PDO are mainly contributions of the changes in the meridional gradient of the zonal-mean potential vorticity via alteration of the baroclinic term .