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Background It is critical to disseminate all evidence on long COVID’s impact on people’s lives to inform policy and practice. We aimed to assess five measures of well-being, before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection between people with long COVID (defined as symptoms lasting more than 1 month) and people with short COVID (defined as symptoms resolving within 1 month).Methods Participants from the Optimise Study, a longitudinal cohort study in Victoria, Australia (September 2020–August 2022), had self-reported history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and self-reported long COVID status. Serial cross-sectional analysis compared participants with long and short COVID on Personal Well-being Index, number of COVID-19-like symptoms experienced, number of days exercised and frequency of experiencing positive and negative emotions.Results 217 participants were included, aged 20–86 years (median age 43, IQR: 31–57), 75% women. Compared with those with short COVID, participants with long COVID had lower well-being before (mean difference (MD)=−8.3, 95% CI (-14.7, –2.0), p-adjusted=0.07), during (MD=−10.3, 95% CI (–16.5, –4.0), p-adjusted=0.03) and after (MD=−9.91, 95% CI (–16.71, –3.11), p-adjusted=0.05) infection and experienced more COVID-19-like symptoms during infection (MD=1.72 (0.72, 2.72), p-adjusted=0.03). In December 2022, 71% (40/56) reported difficulty performing tasks in the past 4 weeks.Conclusion On average, we observed lower well-being among participants with long COVID, including before SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting an underlying difference in well-being between groups. Long COVID continued to impact physical functioning, but ongoing changes were not detected by personal well-being scales.