Abstract: Near field communication (NFC) has become a prerequisite function for wireless terminals. Due to the property of small detection range, good anti-interference ability, and high safety, it is widely applied to mobile payment and virtual card. The reverse eddy current will be induced on metallic components in close-proximity range by the magnetic field of the NFC antenna. Besides, the shielding metallic components will block the magnetic flux between the transmitting and receiving antennas. Hence, the metallic components inside the mobile terminals like battery, mainboard, and back cover will significantly influence the performance of the NFC antenna. In this paper, the history, standards, system structure of NFC are introduced at the beginning and the research progress of NFC antenna for mobile terminal is briefly introduced as follows based on the metallic covering condition in the operating environments.