Abstract Aims To evaluate the current management and survival of patients with left-sided infective endocarditis (IE) complicated by congestive heart failure (CHF) in the ESC-EORP European Endocarditis (EURO-ENDO) registry. Methods and results Among the 3116 patients enrolled in this prospective registry, 2449 (mean age: 60 years, 69% male) with left-sided (native or prosthetic) IE were included in this study. Patients with CHF (n = 698, 28.5%) were older, with more comorbidity and more severe valvular damage (mitro-aortic involvement, vegetations >10 mm and severe regurgitation/new prosthesis dehiscence) than those without CHF (all p ≤ 0.019). Patients with CHF experienced higher 30-day and 1-year mortality than those without (20.5% vs. 9.0% and 36.1% vs. 19.3%, respectively) and CHF remained strongly associated with 30-day (odds ratio[OR] 2.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.73–3.24; p < 0.001) and 1-year mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.69, 95% CI 1.39–2.05; p < 0.001) after adjustment for established outcome predictors, including early surgery, or after propensity matching for age, sex, and comorbidity (n = 618 [88.5%] for each group, both p < 0.001). Early surgery, performed on 49% of these patients with IE complicated by CHF, remained associated with a substantial reduction in 30-day mortality following multivariable analysis, after adjustment for age, sex, Charlson comorbidity index, cerebrovascular accident, Staphylococcus aureus IE, streptococcal IE, uncontrolled infection, vegetation size >10 mm, severe valvular regurgitation and/or new prosthetic dehiscence, perivalvular complication, and prosthetic IE (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.12–0.38; p < 0.001) and in 1-year mortality (HR 0.29, 95% CI 0.20–0.41; p < 0.001). Conclusion Congestive heart failure is common in left-sided IE and is associated with older age, greater comorbidity, more advanced lesions, and markedly higher 30-day and 1-year mortality. Early surgery is strongly associated with lower mortality but is performed on only approximately half of patients with CHF, mainly because of a surgical risk considered prohibitive.