Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system. Because colorectal cancer is often asymptomatic at early stages and diagnosed late, its mortality rate is high. Therefore, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of colorectal cancer are particularly important. At present, colorectal cancer diagnosis depends mainly on endoscopy, imaging examination, and serological examination of tumor markers. Among them, tumor markers detection is an extremely significant method in the diagnosis, prognosis judgment, and detection of recurrence. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find new serum biomarkers for early detection of colorectal cancer. In this paper, we review the progress in the research of tumor markers related to colorectal cancer in recent years, with an aim to guide the diagnosis and estimate the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients. We also suggest that the simultaneous detection of multiple tumor markers has higher accuracy.