Improving water use efficiency is strategically significant in arid and semi-arid regions where water scarcity is an issue. This implies that surge flow irrigation (SF) could positively impact crop production in water-scarce areas by enhancing water use efficiency (WUE). This study aimed to evaluate the performance of SF compared to continuous flow irrigation (CF) by assessing the water advance time, soil moisture distribution pattern, application efficiency, and WUE for maize production. The experiment utilized 120m long furrows with 0.70m spacing and a 0.1% average slope on clay soil. The treatments comprised three inflow rates (Q1: 0.49 l s–1, Q2: 0.74 l s–1, and Q3: 0.90 l s–1) and three SF treatments with four surges (SF4), five surges (SF5), and six surges (SF6), as well as three CF treatments (CF1, CF2, CF3) with the same inflow rates for comparison The results revealed that the SF treatments reduce the water advance time compared to the CF treatment. The SF6 treatment reduced the advance time by 15.23% compared to the CF treatment. Moreover, the SF63 treatment achieved the highest application efficiency of 91.93%, whereas the CF3 treatment achieved the lowest value of 55.51%. On the other hand, maize yield was significantly influenced, with the SF61 treatment producing the highest yield (3740 kg fed–1) and the CF3 treatment yielding the lowest (2756 kg fed–1). The SF63 treatment also showed the highest WUE value (1.91 kg m–3) compared to the CF3 treatment, which had the lowest WUE value (0.94 kg m–3). Additionally, surge flow-irrigated furrows achieved water savings ranging from 19.83% to 32.26% under different surges from the SF4 to SF6 treatments. These results indicate that the SF system is a promising technology for maize production in regions with limited water use.