Pesticides are used to inhibit fungi, prevent insect pests and regulate plant growth mechanism. the analysis of pesticide residues is of great significance to promote the sustainable development of agricultural products. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the advantages of non-invasion, high sensitivity and fingerprint recognition. Using precious metal nanomaterials with excellent plasma properties as the substrate, single-component or complex multi-component trace pesticide residues can be analyzed and detected. However, this kind of nanoparticles with high surface energy are easy to agglomerate, in order to solve this problem, researchers at home and abroad have proposed to introduce cellulose, polymers and carbon materials with large voids to support and fix the surface modified precious metal nanomaterials to provide spectral enhancement. In this paper, the common preparation methods and applications of different types of flexible SERS substrates (cellulose, transparent tape, polymers, biomass materials, carbon materials, etc.) were reviewed, and the latest research progress in the application of flexible SERS substrates to different pesticide residues was introduced by making full use of the advantages of SERS fingerprint analysis. Finally, the problems to be solved urgently for the development and application of SERS technology are put forward.