Abstract Aims Chronic heart failure (CHF) is often a common comorbidity in critically ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and carries an extremely poor prognosis. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between the blood urea nitrogen to serum albumin ratio (BAR) and the prognosis of patients with CHF admitted to the ICU. Methods and results This retrospective cohort study included 1545 critically ill patients with CHF as a diagnosed comorbidity admitted to the ICU deposited in the MIMIC‐III database, of whom 90 day all‐cause mortality was 27.6% (n = 427) and in‐hospital mortality was 17.3% (n = 267). The results of multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that BAR is an independent risk factor for in‐hospital mortality in critically ill patients with CHF [compared with BAR ≤ 0.83; 0.83