- 1941: O. Henry Award, second place, "A Worn Path"
- 1942: O. Henry Award, first place, "The Wide Net"
- 1943: O. Henry Award, first place, "Livvie is Back"
- 1954: William Dean Howells medal for fiction, The Ponder Heart[38]
- 1968: O. Henry Award, first place, "The Demonstrators”
- 1969: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[39]
- 1970: The Edward MacDowell Medal[40]
- 1973: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Optimist's Daughter[15]
- 1979: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Urbana, Illinois[41]
- 1980: Presidential Medal of Freedom[38]
- 1981: Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia
- 1983: National Book Award for the first paperback edition of The Collected Works of Eudora Welty[42][a]
- 1983: Invited by Harvard University to give the first annual Massey Lectures in the History of American Civilization, revised and published as One Writer's Beginnings[5][16]
- 1983: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates[43][44]
- 1985: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from The College of William and Mary in Virginia[45]
- 1985: Achievement Award, American Association of University Women
- 1986: National Medal of Arts.[46]
- 1990: A recipient of the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, Lifetime Achievement, which was the state of Mississippi's recognition of her extraordinary contribution to American Letters.
- 1991: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters[47][48]
- 1991: Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.[48][49] The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.
- 1992: Rea Award for the Short Story[50]
- 1992: PEN/Malamud Award for the Short Story[50]
- 1992: National Humanities Medal[51]
- 1993: Charles Frankel Prize, National Endowment for the Humanities[50]
- 1993: Distinguished Alumni Award, American Association of State Colleges and Universities[50]
- 1996: Made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur by the French government
- 1998: First living author to have her works published in the prestigious Library of America series[5]
- 2000: America Award for a lifetime contribution to international writing
- 2000: Induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame[52]
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