Vibration energy harvesting technology is one important method of easing the energyshortage pressure and has a wide application prospects in electromechanical fields. Employing the excellent performance of the magnetostrictive material, magnetostrictive type vibration energy harvester has been focused on and developed rapidly. Some important information of the magnetostrictive material related to the vibration energy harvesting technology was reviewed. Two typical structures respectively of cantilever type and rod type were also presented with both working characteristics. Current status of the structure design, theoretical researches and electric circuit studies were significantly summarized for magnetostrictive type vibration energy harvester. Also, the difficulties faced with and developing trends of this technology were also analyzed.