Underground engineering is constantly threatened by groundwater during its construction and in use. It is a key topic to completely eradicate the danger of water to underground engineering in design, construction and use. The paper presents the recent development and existing problems of waterproof techniques on underground engineering in China and foreign countries from a viewpoint of design, construction, application of new materials and maintenance. It sketches out such waterproof techniques as waterproof of surrounding rock, self-waterproof of structure, additional waterproof layer and drainage system, summarizes the design principle on details of underground engineering and structure treatment and construction method of outer wall joint, post-pouring concrete strips and details of deformation joint. Finally, it looks into the prospect on waterproof techniques in the future in such aspects as self-waterproof, association of self-waterproof with additional waterproof layer, application of new waterproof materials and construction technology.