Rare earth organic carboxylic acid complexes have been the attractive research field all the time and have obtained remarkable progress owing to their high stability, hypotoxicity, excellent biocompatibility and luminous properties. In this paper, the research achievements about the luminescent materials of rare earth organic carboxylic acid complexes in recent years had been collected. Furthermore, the factors of rare earth organic carboxylic acid complexes, which were the luminous mechanism, synthesized methods, influence factors of luminescent properties and application areas of luminescent materials, were summarized and analyzed. And on top of that, the future development inclination of the luminescent materials of rare earth organic carboxylic acid complexes is also forecasted in this study.