Many areas of China are located in the seismic zone, the use of isolation technology to improve the seismic capacity of buildings or bridges for avoiding and reducing the loss of peoples lives and property after the earthquake is of great significance. Natural rubber bearings has good vertical stiffness and shear stiffness, but the equivalent damping ratio is very low, and additional dampers or infused lead cores are needed to increase the damping ratio. In order to solve this problem, engineers are developing rubber composites with excellent comprehensive mechanical properties and damping properties by blending, copolymerizing and adding small molecules, and widely using them in isolation systems, which greatly promotes the development of isolation technology. This paper firstly introduces the principle and classification of the isolation technology, especially the classification and current status of the laminated rubber bearing isolation system. Finally, the rubber composite materials for seismic isolation bearings are reviewed, including the research status and application of single component rubber, multicomponent rubber, organic small molecular hybrid materials and magnetorheological elastomers.