Considering the effect of water utilization efficiency improvement on water utilization quota in different periods, this study systematically analyzed the changing process of water footprint in Beijing from 1988 to 2019, and the information entropy was applied to quantitative assessment of water utilization structure of the real water and the water footprint. The results show that the development and utilization of real water in Beijing have been continuously optimized, with agricultural and industrial water consumptions decreasing rapidly and residential and ecological water consumption increasing significantly. A water consumption pattern has been formed, in which the guarantee of residential water consumption is placed in the first position, and the improvement of ecological water consumption is placed in the second position. The water footprint in Beijing is constantly increasing,and the virtual water net input induced by commodity trade greatly alleviates the pressure of water utilization in Beijing, but increases the dependence of Beijing on the virtual water net input,with the agricultural and industrial virtual water inputs accounting for more than 60% of their total water footprints from 2015 to 2019 and the water resources system being severely overloaded all year around. The information entropy of the real water system first increases and then decreases,residential and ecological water consumptions have become the dominant types of water utilization；the water footprint system experiences an entropy increase process in the earlier stage,then tends to be stable, with its water utilization structure reaching an equilibrium state.