Collagen is a kind of natural biomedical material and collagen based three-dimensional porous scaffolds have been widely used in skin tissue engineering. However, these scaffolds do not meet the requirements for artificial skin substitutes in terms of their poor mechanical properties, short supply, and rejection in the bodies. All of these factors limit their further application in skin tissue engineering. A variety of methods have been chosen to meliorate the situation, such as cross linking and blending other substance for improving mechanical properties. The highly biomimetic scaffolds either in structure or in function can be prepared through culturing cells and loading growth factors. To avoid the drawbacks of unsafety attributing to animals, investigators have fixed their eyes on the recombinant collagen. This paper reviews the the progress of research and application of collagen-based 3-dimensional porous scaffolds in skin tissue engineering.