The anelasticity behavior was investigated of Zr-based bulk metallic glasses in a geometrically constrained quasi-static cyclic loading–unloading compression tests. The results demonstrated that the dissipative energy during cycle loading was in inverse proportion to the cross-head displacement rate used, and the anelasticity behavior have close correlation with the elastic stress-induced microstructure evolution. The dissipative energy during cycle loading in BMGs could also be used as a parameter to characterize the spatial multiplication ability of shear bands. The larger dissipative energy implies the higher the spatial multiplication ability of shear bands.