Objective To explore the mediating effect of pre-sleep hyperarousal between bedtime mobile phone use and subjective sleep quality among military university students. Methods Totally 565 military university students were collected by cluster sampling, and were investigated by self-designed questionnaire, Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) scale and pre-sleep arousal scale (PSAS). Pearson correlation analysis and Spearman correlation analysis were used to test the correlation between the variables, and Bootstrap test was used to test the mediating effect between Pre-sleep hyperarousal and subjective sleep quality. Results A total of 553 valid questionnaires were collected, and the effective rate was 97.88%. Among the 553 military students, 81.56% (45 cases) used mobile phones at most time or always before bedtime. Bedtime mobile phone use was positively correlated with the total score of PSQI scale (r=0.255, P<0.01) and the total score of PSAS (r=0.216，P<0.01). Pre-sleep hyperarousal partially mediated the association between bedtime mobile phone use and subjective sleep quality, which accounted for 42.86% of the total effect (P<0.01). Conclusion Pre-sleep hyperarousal partially mediates the relationship between bedtime mobile phone use and subjective sleep quality among military university students.