Purpose: This paper aims to provide new evidence that corporate site visits give institutional investors better opportunities to obtain information and exert monitoring powers, which reduce listed firms’ earnings management. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores how private communications affect firms’ earnings management by using a sample of institutional investors’ visits to the corporate sites of Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2018. This study uses the performance-matched Jones model (Kothari et al., 2005) to measure accrual-based earnings management and Roychowdhury’s (2006) method to measure real earnings management. The authors also perform several robustness checks including an alternative measure of accounting accruals, a two-stage instrumental regression and the Heckman two-step approach. Findings: Using a sample of institutional investors’ site visits to Chinese listed firms during the 2010–2018 period, this study finds that institutional investors’ site visits reduce listed firms’ earnings manipulation activities (both accrual-based and real). This association is robust to several checks, including an alternative measure of accounting accruals, a two-stage instrumental regression and the Heckman two-step approach. This study further documents that other private communication approaches such as private in-house meetings and conference calls moderate the effect of site visits. Practical implications: As the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is one of the few stock markets to mandate that listed firms record and disclose their private communication information, this study also has implications for researchers and policymakers who work in other stock markets. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive study of the impact of private communications on earnings management. This study extends the earnings management literature by examining institutional investors’ information acquisition process and revealing a negative association between their site visits and listed firms’ earnings management. Moreover, this study examines the effects not only on traditional accounting accruals but also on real earnings management. In addition to studies that emphasize the effect of corporate site visits on individuals and market reactions, this study examines the effect of site visits on firms’ financial misbehavior. This study shows that institutional investors’ corporate site visits provide external monitoring that mitigates listed firms’ earnings management behavior.