In the first round of the 2016 UK Championship, Muir beat Joe Swail 6–5, after having trailed 5–2. In a televised match against Ding Junhui in the next round he lost 6–2, having held a narrow 2–1 advantage. He made his first professional maximum break whilst defeating Itaro Santos 5–2 in the qualifying rounds for the German Masters. Muir then met Ali Carter who had also made a 147 on the same day and was edged out 5–4. At the Welsh Open, Muir eliminated Mark Joyce 4–3 and Marco Fu 4–0, before losing 4–1 in the third round to Zhou Yuelong. He reached the last 16 of a ranking event for the first time at the Shoot-Out, which had had its status upgraded this season, and was beaten by Anthony Hamilton. He was thrashed 5–0 by Eden Sharav in the first round of the China Open and just fell short of getting into the top 64 in the world rankings at the end of the season as he was 67th. However, Muir did enough to claim a two-year tour card on the one-year list.