Biofouling caused by the attachment of marine organism is a big problem in the process of sailing ships. Painting antifouling coating is considered to be the most economical and effective way to prevent marine organisms from defacing ships. This paper introduced the demands of antifouling coating for ships including the long-term activity, suitability in both static and dynamic seawater, universality in different oceans based on the service characteristics of ships. It is pointed out that developing an environmental friendly antifouling coating with long-term activity is still a challenge in the field of antifouling coatings research. The developments of self-polishing antifouling coating, fouling release antifouling coating, bionic antifouling coating, self-healing antifouling coating and other new antifouling technologies are reviewed. It is concluded that self-polishing antifouling coating is still the mainstream product in the antifouling coating market, and other new antifouling technologies still need to be verified through practical application. With the increasing strictness of environmental protection laws, deeper research of antifouling mechanism and the continuous improvement of the antifouling performance evaluation methods, development of the new type of environment-friendly antifouling coating will be speeded up and get widely used.