The extreme dry and hot 2015/16 El Ni & ntilde;o episode caused large losses in tropical live aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks. Followed by climatic conditions conducive to high vegetation productivity since 2016, tropical AGC are expected to recover from large losses during the El Ni & ntilde;o episode; however, the recovery rate and its spatial distribution remain unknown. Here, we used low-frequency microwave satellite data to track AGC changes, and showed that tropical AGC stocks returned to pre-El Ni & ntilde;o levels by the end of 2020, resulting in an AGC sink of 0.180.140.26$$ {0.18}_{0.14}<^>{0.26} $$ Pg C year-1 during 2014-2020. This sink was dominated by strong AGC increases (0.610.490.84$$ {0.61}_{0.49}<^>{0.84} $$ Pg C year-1) in non-forest woody vegetation during 2016-2020, compensating the forest AGC losses attributed to the El Ni & ntilde;o event, forest loss, and degradation. Our findings highlight that non-forest woody vegetation is an increasingly important contributor to interannual to decadal variability in the global carbon cycle. The 2015/16 El Ni & ntilde;o caused significant losses in tropical aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks, but these have recovered to pre-El Ni & ntilde;o levels by the end of 2020. This recovery was primarily driven by increases in carbon stored in non-forest woody vegetation, which played a key role in offsetting the losses from forests.image