The golden ring snake has been included in the List of Beneficial or Important Economic and Scientific Research Terrestrial Wild Animals Protected by the State issued by the State Forestry Administration of China on August 1, 2000. The golden ring snake is a second-class protected animal in the international convention.

The number of golden ring snakes is extremely rare in the wild. The golden ring snake is one of the famous edible snakes. The golden ring snake body is soaked in wine and the snake gallbladder is also used as medicine. For a long time, a large number of them have been hunted and killed for domestic sale or export. As a result, the number of krait species declined by 50% between 1997 and 2007. In September 2020, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration issued the Notice on Regulating the Scope of the Classification and Management of Fasting Wild Animals, prohibiting the breeding of golden ring snakes for the purpose of eating, except for special circumstances such as appropriate reserves of provenance , to guide farmers to stop breeding.