Background: To evaluate how the location of bladder cancer recurrence after radical cystectomy (RC) affects survival and assess the role of salvage immunotherapy in this setting. Methods: On retrospective review of 4093 patients from our institutional IRB approved cystectomy database from January 1971 to December 2021, we identified 889 patients who underwent RC with curative intent and have been detected with recurrence of bladder cancer. Patients with urethral and ureteral recurrence were excluded. The data was then stratified based on the site of recurrence. Results: In this cohort of 889 patients (median age of 68, 77% male), the most common sites of metastases were widespread (48%), local (15%), lung (10%), bone (8%), retroperitoneal nodes (5.5%), liver (5%) and brain (1.5%) in order. With a median of 8.4 months, bone metastasis had shortest length from cystectomy to recurrence, while liver metastasis had shortest post recurrence survival (median of 4 months). For distant recurrence alone, only 33% survived past the first year. Salvage immunotherapy was administered in 8% of the patients and 47% received salvage chemotherapy. On multivariate analysis, liver metastasis (HR 2, 95%CI 1.4-2.9), widespread metastasis (HR 1.9, 95%CI 1.5-2.4), pathological staging>T3 (HR 1.3, 95%CI 1.1-1.6) and nodal involvement at the time of RC (HR 1.5, 95%CI 1.2-1.7) were significantly associated with worse survival after the recurrence. Salvage immunotherapy provided a significant improvement in post-recurrence survival (HR 0.2, 95% CI 0.1-0.3). Conclusions: Liver, brain, and widespread metastases predominantly showed the lowest chance of survival past one year from recurrence; however, more than half of all patients with recurrence did not live past the first year. Salvage immunotherapy may lead to a better prognosis in recurrence post-cystectomy.