Abstract: A large amount of soil phosphorus input will increase the availability of soil phosphorus, which will significantly affect the carbon cycle process of terrestrial ecosystem. As a key component of carbon cycle, soil respiration plays an important role in the global carbon balance and climate warming. The response mode and mechanism of soil respiration to phosphorus fertilizer is a hot issue in the current ecological research field. In this paper, the response of soil respiration and its components to phosphorus fertilizer was reviewed. It was found that the effects of phosphorus fertilizer on soil respiration and its components were increased, decreased, and no effect, and varied depending on the types of ecosystem, the application amount of phosphorus, and the duration of phosphorus application. The phosphorus fertilizer mainly affected the soil respiration and its components directly or indirectly by changing the environmental factors such as soil pH, soluble organic carbon, plant productivity, litter, and microbial community composition. In the future, we should focus on the effects of phosphorus application on the soil respiration components and the microbiological mechanism. At the same time, the response of soil respiration components to the changes of various environmental factors mediated by phosphorus fertilizer should be studied, so as to provide theoretical reference for comprehensively understanding the regulation of phosphorus fertilizer on the global carbon balance.