Bifenthrin (BF) is widely used as a miticide in orchards, nurseries and homes due to its great photostability and insecticidal activity. Recently, extensive research has been conducted on the toxicity of BF in in vitro and in vivo assays. However, no data is so far available regarding the developmental toxicity of BF to fish in early life stages. In this study, the developmental effects of BF were evaluated in embryo-larval zebrafish. At specified stages (24, 48, 72, and 96hpf), spontaneous movement, survival and hatching as well as non-lethal malformation like curved body axis or edema were described in detail. No significant lethal effects of the treatment group compared to the control occurred except for the highest concentration group exposed for 96h. The hatching process was accelerated by BF in a concentration-dependent way, correlated with increasing spontaneous movement. Developmental abnormalities were observed for the test compound with 96-h EC 50 of 256μgL −1 for pericardial edema, and 109μgL −1 for curved body axis. Results from locomotor assays showed that zebrafish larvae of 96hpf exhibited impaired swimming behaviour after exposure to 50, 100, and 200μgL −1 from 3 to 84hpf. After being cultured in the BF-free embryo medium for one more day till 120hpf, larvae from the 50μgL −1 group seemed to have recovered and showed no difference in the swimming behaviour compared to the control while animals of the two higher concentration groups were exhausted and swam in significantly lower speed. Furthermore, reverse transcription real-time PCR results showed that vitellogenin I expressions were significantly induced in larval zebrafish exposed to 150μgL −1 BF for 72h, indicating the disruption of the endocrine level. In summary, our studies showed that BF was developmentally toxic to zebrafish in early life stage after short-term exposure to sublethal concentrations and had the ability to impair the individual behaviours which are of great importance in the assessment of their ecological fitness.