Normally, catch per unit effort (CPUE) is the total catch in a specific period (such as, year, month or season) divided by the total amount of effort used to harvest the catch in the corresponding period. As an index of measuring the abundance variation of fishery resources, CPUE is often used for fishery stock assessments. As a living marine resource with aggregation trait, the abundance of Antarctic krill has a significant spatial-temporal variation. Additionally, particularities of this species and fishery characteristics result in remarkable uncertainty in efficiently measuring the variation of abundance. Thus, this review provides detailed information on four methods to calculate CPUE of Antarctic krill fishery and summarizes the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of these methods, and further analyzes the impacts of estimating CPUE of Antarctic krill fishery in view of temporalspatial scale and environmental factors. The suitability and feasibility of CPUE being considered as an index of abundance were also discussed. In recent years, Antarctic krill fishery has attracted more attention worldwide, however, there is no consistent argument on how to include fishery survey data into krill fishery stock assessment, which hampers the development of ecosystem-based Antarctic krill fishery management. The conclusion derived from this review can provide ideas for conducting better stock assessment and abundance estimation of Antarctic krill resources.