Cover crops are grown during fallow period between two main cash crops and biomass is returned to the soil at their destruction. They provide many ecosystem services such as nitrate leaching reduction or green manure effect. However, the impact of these multiservices cover crops on water balance is poorly studied. Some papers reported an increased evapotranspiration due to an increase of plant transpiration that could decrease water drainage. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on the intensity of their impact on water budget. Less drainage could reduce groundwater water recharge, which can be a crucial issue, particularly in dry regions and in a climate change context with more frequent drought. Since the impact of cover crops on water cycle and drainage can be a serious disservice, particularly if generalized over large spatial area, our objective was to study the effect of cover crops on drainage through a meta-analysis. We carried out a meta-analysis to compare drainage under cover crops versus bare soil in temperate climates. From an initial database of more than 280 references, we selected 34 studies having available data on drainage, including a comparison between cover crops and bare soil at field scale from both experiments and modelling study. Despite high variability of climate, soil, and cover crop management, cover crops reduced water drainage in more than 90% of the 34 studies. The mean effect size reported a water drainage reduction of 31 mm with a confidence interval at 95% between 41 mm and 22 mm. This reduction indicates that evapotranspiration was higher with cover crops compared to a bare soil, the reduction of soil evaporation by the plant cover being lower than the cover crop transpiration. A slight higher reduction of drainage was obtained for modeling results than for field measurements, as well as for cover crops sown during summer than during autumn and on medium soil texture than on loamy or clay soils. However, these trends were not signi