Continuous improvement in food safety standards poses new challenges to the detection of pesticide residues. Recently, time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay (TRFIA) has been widely concerned with rapid development in the detection of diverse pesticides in foods due to its simple pretreatment, convenient operation, low cost, high sensitivity, and fast analysis speed. The relevant publications have increased, attracting growing research interest. Thus, in this review, the general situation and main types of TRFIA were first introduced, then, the real applications of different materials assisted TRFIA including lanthanide elements (europium, terbium, and samarium), lanthanide element-doped fluorescent microspheres and nano-beads, in combination with biotin-avidin system amplification strategies in the detection of pesticide residues in food samples, as well as their advantages, faced challenges and future prospects were discussed. It is hoped that this review will provide leading insights into the future development and wide application of TRFIA for researchers in different fields to ensure the quality and safety of foods, as well as people’s health.