The global impacts of El Nino on precipitation have been long-recognized, but more understanding of the mechanisms behind this influence is needed. For instance, previous studies have largely overlooked the potential impacts of El Nino on terrestrial moisture recycling (TMR). We perform a 40-year forward tracking simulation to derive a global climatology of recycled precipitation and use a composite analysis to investigate how El Nino affects TMR. We identify seven regions where the El Nino impact on TMR is most significant and find that, in these regions, changes in precipitation and TMR are directly related: they increase or decrease together. In addition, we find a marked latitudinal contrast between the Southern Hemisphere, where TMR increases during El Nino, and the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics, where it decreases. Our results indicate that the weakening and strengthening of TMR can be behind precipitation changes caused by El Nino globally.