Inflammatory bowel disease is a non-specific inflammatory condition of the bowel disease which is chronic. Crohn's disease and Ulcerative colitis are the two principal diseases within the category of inflammatory bowel disease. Inflammatory bowel disease is associated with many factors, such as immune dysfunction, intestinal microenvironment homeostasis imbalance, environmental factors or genetic factors. At present, the specific pathogenesis is still unclear. Over recent years, zebrafish, which is an emerging model animal, has been extensively utilized in the mechanism research of inflammatory bowel disease, model construction, activity evaluation and screening of anti-inflammatory bowel disease compounds due to its unique biological advantages. Based on the latest research progress of zebrafish in the field of inflammatory bowel disease at home and abroad, this review systematically introduces the intestinal development characteristics, tissue structure, intestinal immunity, inflammatory bowel disease model and the application of drug screening in zebrafish, so as to demonstrate the application value of zebrafish in the study of inflammatory bowel disease.