The guild hall was a unique form of existence in Chongqing society during the Qing Dynasty. It served as both a physical carrier for immigrants to maintain their sense of belonging to their hometown and a relational space for the operation of local power networks. Based on the theory of social space and combining with Fei Xiaotong’s unique description of the “difference order pattern” of traditional Chinese social relations, this paper systematically examines the transformation of the spatial functions of Chongqing guild halls and its internal logic during the Qing Dynasty. The research shows that Chongqing guild halls underwent a phased transformation from a refuge for immigrant communities to a center for community governance. This process was essentially a dynamic result of the mutual construction between immigrant practices and local social relations. Against the backdrop of the “Hubei and Hunan Filling Sichuan” policy during the Kangxi and Qianlong periods, immigrants from other provinces were separated from their original clan communities and faced the predicament of being disconnected from their social networks. Guild halls emerged as a response, providing immigrants with the function of rebuilding their geographical communities, obtaining spiritual belonging and material security. During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, with generational changes and commercial expansion, guild halls gradually expanded their functional scope and governance boundaries, shifting from internal community self-governance to participation in local affairs management, thus becoming the center of community governance. Immigrants, through institutionalized practices, emotional strategies, and cooperation with local officials and gentry, reconstructed the local social relations space within the framework of “autonomy under despotism”. The transformation of the spatial functions of guild halls profoundly reflects how immigrants, through embodied practices such as worship, deliberation, and performance, interacted and negotiated with local power entities, completing their identity transformation from “outsiders” to “co-builders” of the community. With an unprecedented distribution density, a unique eight-province collaborative mechanism, and deep governance participation, guild halls not only provide a typical case for understanding the transformation of traditional immigrant social organizations but also offer historical references for the cultivation of cultural identity, economic collaboration mechanisms, and multi-party governance models in contemporary immigrant community governance.