Abstract: The extensive use of neonicotinoid pesticides has resulted in their residual accumulation in various environmental media, including soil, water, and atmospheric deposition. This poses a threat to organisms at multiple levels. These compounds can be absorbed, accumulated, and metabolically transformed by plants, thereby compromising crop quality and the safety of agricultural products. This class of pesticides exhibits strong systemic properties: after absorption, they can be translocated within plants, with tissue distribution being co-determined by the physicochemical properties of the pesticides and the crop species. Once taken up, neonicotinoids undergo multi-phase metabolism mediated by enzyme systems such as cytochrome P450 monooxygenases and glutathione S-transferases. The biological effects of neonicotinoid pesticides are both dose- and crop-specific. Excessive concentrations can interfere with normal plant physiology functions, inhibit nutrient absorption, and impair quality formation. Various phytohormone signaling pathways play a critical roles in plant responses to neonicotinoid pesticide stress, which can effectively alleviate plant stress effects and reduce pesticide residue accumulation by regulating the antioxidant systems and metabolic detoxification networks. This review systematically summarizes recent research progress on neonicotinoid pesticides in terms of their environmental occurrence and toxicity risks, absorption, translocation, and metabolic transformation in plants, effects on plant growth, development, and quality, as well as the molecular mechanisms underlying hormone-regulated detoxification and residue reduction. We further highlight key scientific questions that warrant in-depth investigation, including the molecular mechanisms of multi-phase metabolism, metabolic residue characteristics, the regulatory networks of plant responses to pesticide stress-particularly the roles of key signaling receptors and the transcriptional regulation of detoxification genes, aiming to provide a reference for future research on crop germplasm innovation and residue pollution strategies.