This review highlights the recent progress of bulk and nanoscale coordination polymer (CP) materials for energy transfer. Artificial light-harvesting materials with efficient energy transfer are practically useful for a variety of applications including photovoltaic, white emitting devices, and sensors. In the past decades CP (aka Metal-organic framework, MOF) has experienced rapid development due to a multitude of applications, including catalyst, gas storage and separations, non-linear optics, luminescence, and so on. Recent research has shown that CP is a very promising light-harvesting platform because the energy transfers can occur between different ligands, from ligand to metal centers, or from MOF skeleton to guest species. This review comprehensively surveyed synthetic approaches to light-harvesting CPs, and post functionalization. Sensing applications and achievements in energy-transfer CP nanoparticles and thin films were also discussed.