ABSTRACT The present paper is dedicated to the optimal time-decay estimates of global strong solutions near constant equilibrium (away from vacuum) to the compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations in the critical Besov spaces. In which we claim a new low-frequency assumption that plays a key role in the large-time behavior of solutions. Precisely, we exhibit that if the low frequencies of initial data belong to some Besov space with (), then the norm (the slightly stronger norm in fact) of strong solutions has the optimal decay ( if ) for , which improve the results of [Shi WX, Xu J. Large-time behavior of strong solutions to the compressible magnetohydrodynamic system in the critical framework. J Hyperbol Differ Equ. 2018;15:259–290]. The proof mainly depends on a sharp time-weighted energy estimates in light of low and high frequencies for the solutions. As a by-product, those optimal time-decay rates of - type are also captured in the critical framework.