The safety of current nuclear plant has attracted more and more attention since Fukushima earthquake in Japan which generated serious accident of nuclear reactors. Thus the concept of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) was suggested, which could keep resistance to loss of coolant accident and improving the performance under normal working condition. Among the several materials of ATF, uranium dioxide (UO2) based fuel which enhances the thermal conductivity without affecting the neutron property has been considered the most significative frame fuel applied in current nuclear reactors. As a result, UO2 based ATF has also been considered the most important currently. In this paper the research progress of UO2 based ATF has been reviewed.