Pilot free trade zones serve as the forefront of institutional innovation and an important platform for deeply integrating with international economic and trade rules. This two-way synergistic institutional openness is conducive to accurately adapting to the new type of production relations required for the development of new quality productive forces. Through adaptive adjustments, it provides strong support for the innovation and upgrading of productivity, empowering the development of new quality productive forces. This paper uses listed company data from the Wind database from 2012 to 2022, constructs a corporate new quality productive forces evaluation index system based on the theory of the three factors of productivity, determines the index weights using the entropy method and independence weight, calculates the new quality productive forces level at the enterprise level, and examines the impact mechanism of pilot free trade zones construction on corporate new quality productive forces. Empirical research findings indicate that the construction of pilot free trade zones significantly promotes the enhancement of corporate new quality productive forces. Mechanism analysis results show that pilot free trade zones mainly promote the development of corporate new quality productive forces by alleviating corporate financing constraints and reducing corporate institutional costs. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that pilot free trade zones have a more pronounced promotional effect on the new quality productive forces of non-state-owned enterprises, the construction of pilot free trade zones in the coastal areas significantly promotes the development of corporate new quality productive forces, but the role of inland pilot free trade zones is insignificant. At the same time, the impact of pilot free trade zones is not limited to enterprises within the zone, and there is a significant spillover effect. Compared with previous literature, this paper extends in the following three aspects. First, it optimizes the measurement of new quality productive forces, closely follows the connotation of new quality productive forces, optimizes the measurement indicators of new quality laborers, new quality labor objects, and new quality means of labor, and considers the optimization indicators of new quality factor combinations, constructing an index system that better fits the connotation of new quality productive forces. Second, using listed company data, it is the first to empirically test that the construction of pilot free trade zones is conducive to promoting the enhancement of corporate new quality productive forces, deepening the understanding of the important role of institutional openness in accelerating the development of new quality productive forces. Third, it reveals the mechanism by which pilot free trade zones can promote the enhancement of corporate new quality productive forces by alleviating corporate financing constraints and reducing corporate institutional costs, analyzes the spatial spillover effect of pilot free trade zones, and has reference significance for optimizing the policy system supporting the development of corporate new quality productive forces. This study reveals the internal logic of how institutional openness promotes the development of new quality productive forces, which not only helps to enrich the theoretical research on the construction of pilot free trade zones but also provides practical guidance for creating a pioneer area of institutional openness and assisting in the leapfrog development of productivity levels from an empirical perspective.