A K-shaped recovery is an economic recovery following a recession where different parts of the economy recover at different rates, times, or magnitudes. This is in contrast to an even, uniform recovery across sectors, industries, or groups of people. In a K-shaped recovery, some parts of the economy may experience strong growth while others continue to decline. The term "K-shaped" recovery gained prominence in 2020 and 2021 in the wake of the sharp recession in the U.S. that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, and was used to describe the uneven economic recovery across different sectors, industries, and groups of people in the economy.

A K-shaped recovery leads to changes in the structure of the economy or the broader society as economic outcomes and relations are fundamentally changed before and after the recession. The path of different parts of the economy when charted together may diverge, resembling the two arms of the Roman letter "K". The meaning of a K-shaped recovery depends on the choice of how to disaggregate data across the economy.

A K-shaped recovery is challenging policymakers as it is difficult to implement stimulus actions to develop all parts of the economy. The K-shaped recovery is the latest addition to a roster of recovery classifications that economists identify by letter, including V-shaped, U-shaped, and W-shaped recoveries.