The effective treatment of mineral processing wastewater (MPW) is of great significance to reduce environmental pollution, save water resources and promote the sustainable development of mining industry. Based on the analysis of the source, characteristics and harm of MPW, the research progress of physical, chemical and biological treatment of MPW was summarized in this paper. Physical methods such as coagulation-flocculation and adsorption are slow and have limited effectiveness in removing complex pollutants. Advanced oxidation process such as photocatalysis, Fenton process and ozone process are expected to become an important development direction of MPW treatment in the future because of their simple operation and high efficiency. Biological method has the obvious advantage of no secondary pollution, but it is urgent to solve the problems of long processing time and high requirements of microorganisms on living environment. In the future, different processes can be combined to form an efficient treatment technology system, at the same time, MPW treatment technology for reuse needs can be actively developed.