Depressive symptoms in diabetes are associated with reduced self-care, glycaemic control and health-related quality of life (hrQOL) and increased diabetes-specifi c distress. We analysed if the recovery from depressive symptoms would be associated with improvements in these aspects. 182 diabetes patients (age 46 ± 13 y.; 56% female; BMI 30 ± 7; 62% type 1 diabetes; illness duration 15 ± 10 y.; 95% with insulin; HbA1c 8.7 ± 1.7%) with subclinical depressive symptoms (CES-D score ≥ 16 without meeting criteria for clinical depression; mean CES-D score: 23 ± 8) participated in a prospective study. Recovery was defi ned as CES-D score < 16 at 12-month follow up. Dependent variables were diabetes self-care (SDSCA), glycaemic control (HbA1c), diabetes distress (PAID) and hrQOL (SF-36). We compared baseline-to-follow up changes between recovered versus nonrecovered patients using ANCOVA (adjusted for baseline values). At follow up, 85 patients (47%) showed recovery. The mean reduction of depressive symptoms in this group was -13 ± 9 CES-D scale points; the mean change in the 97 patients remaining depressed (53%) was +2 ± 9 CES-D scale points. Recovered patients compared to unrecovered ones showed signifi cantly greater improvement (baseline-to-follow up change) regarding self-care (+0.14 ± 1.11 vs. -0.19 ± 1.05 SDSCA scale points, Δ = 0.31, P = 0.014), glycaemic control (-0.78 ± 2.19 vs. -0.56 ± 1.53 HbA1c %-points, Δ = 0.12, P = 0.042), diabetes distress (-13.6 ± 18.8 vs. -4.4 ± 17.1 PAID scale points, Δ = 0.51, P < 0.01) and hrQOL (physical hrQOL: +2.0 ± 8.7 vs. -1.1 ± 9.6 T scores, Δ = 0.341, P = 0.005; mental hrQOL: +14.5 ± 11.9 vs. +0.1 ± 12.2 T scores, Δ = 1.19, P < 0.01). This study provides evidence that recovery from depressive symptoms may have positive impact on diabetes control, diabetes-specifi distress and quality of life.