Abstract: For a long time,foods for special medical purpose( FSMPs) have been evaluated and approved as drugs in China.It seriously restricted the use and development of FSMPs,and made FSMPs unable to meet the clinical needs.Recently,measure for the registration and management of FSMPs has been promulgated. FSMPs were also classified as special foods in food safety law promulgated in 2015.It showed that FSMPs began to be supervised and administrated as foods in China. In this article,the regulatory policies for FSMPs at oversea and domestic and the differences between FSMPs and health foods were concluded. It also analysed the factors of restricting the development of the FSMPs and looked forward to the development trend of FSMPs in China.With the implementation of measure for the registration and management of FSMPs,FSMPs is bound to rapid development in China.