In recent years, with the development of carbon nanomaterials, the synthesis and application of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have made remarkable progress.CQDs, as a kind of green, safe and non-toxic carbon nanomaterials, show great potential for application in the petroleum field. This review firstly describes the relevant background and synthesis methods for the development of CQDs, analyzes their application potential in the petroleum field, especially the research progress and technological achievements in the areas of high efficiency oil repulsion, viscosity reduction of thick oil, oil-water separation, corrosion and scale inhibition, etc., and elaborates on the modification strategies regarding the problems and deficiencies of the CQDs in the petroleum field application, introduces the impact of different modification techniques on the modulation of their properties with the current research developments, summarizes the challenges faced by the application of CQDs in the petroleum field, and looks forward to the future research direction, i.e., optimizing the synthesis method and using the combined strategy to achieve rapid and stable mass production of CQDs; in addition, in-depth study of the mechanism of action, upgrading the surface modification technology, adopting intelligent responsive polymers for the modification or realizing the multielemental doping, etc., to enhance the usability and stability of CQDs, and make full use of their excellent properties to improve the performance and stability of CQDs, as well as to improve the performance of CQDs. In addition, it is necessary to study the mechanism of action, enhance the surface modification technology, adopt intelligent responsive polymers for modification, or realize multi-element doping to improve the usability and stability of CQDs, and make full use of their excellent properties to broaden the scope of application, so as to meet the different needs of the petroleum industry.