<p>Pesticide residues in food pose potential threats to human health and the ecological environment. Developing rapid and sensitive detection technologies is crucial for ensuring food safety and ecological balance. Traditional detection methods suffer from high equipment costs, complex sample pretreatment, and lengthy analysis cycles, making them unsuitable for grassroots supervision and on-site rapid screening. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs/CDs) as a new type of fluorescent carbon nanomaterial, have become a core research direction in the field of food pesticide residue detection due to their high quantum yield, excellent photothermal stability, abundant raw material sources, and green and simple synthesis processes. This article systematically reviews the structural characteristics, fluorescence properties, preparation pathways, and detection advantages of CQDs, analyzes the preparation of four types of probes, and explains the detection mechanisms such as Förster resonance energy transfer and the inner filter effect. On this basis, the latest application progress of CQDs fluorescent probes in the detection of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and antibiotic residues was comprehensively reviewed, covering various food matrices, and highlighting their significant competitiveness in detection limit, response speed, operational convenience, and cost control through quantitative comparison. Besides, the review objectively analyzed the challenges faced by current technology, future research directions, and outlooks. This research not only provides a reference for developing and applying new CQDs detection technologies for pesticide residues in food but also holds significant practical value for improving food safety regulatory systems, reducing health risks from pesticide residues, and promoting high-quality development in the food industry.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>