<p>Trade-embodied air pollution poses significant challenges to transboundary pollution governance. This paper proposes a cross-regional economic compensation mechanism based on the air pollution embodied in interprovincial trade, asymmetrical responsibility sharing coefficients, and heterogeneous abatement costs of pollutants. The results show that pollution tends to transfer from developed provinces to neighboring or relatively less developed provinces. The sharing coefficients fluctuate within the range of 0.047–0.953, indicating significant disparities in terms of achieving trade benefits and undertaking pollution reduction responsibilities. Developed provinces tend to have higher abatement costs, than less developed provinces do. Regional heterogeneity in abatement costs has changed the amount and direction of compensation in some provinces, resulting in less developed provinces even compensating for developed provinces. While pollution reduction is important, it is even more crucial to lower the pollution abatement cost. This paper presents a complete compensation design process, providing a fair scheme for trade-embodied air pollution governance.</p>