Solid-state cooling technology based on the electrocaloric (EC) effect is attracting increasing attention as an important alternative for traditional cooling systems because of its advantages of high efficiency, environmental friendliness, light weight, low cost, and easy miniaturization. Ferroelectric materials are suitable candidates for EC refrigeration due to their large polarization and entropy change through applying or removing an external electric field. Recently, study on the EC effect of lead-free bulk ceramics has become one of hot topics on ferroelectric community due to the requirements of sustainable development. In this review, we firstly introduce the significant history events in EC research and the basic principles of EC refrigeration. Then, design strategy for achieving a large EC temperature change near room temperature and a wide using range is summarized. Subsequently, we systematically review the research status of EC effect in BaTiO₃-based, Bi_0.5Na_0.5TiO₃-based and K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃-based lead-free bulk ceramics and discuss their advantages as well as challenges. Finally, we propose some prospects for the future work on EC effect in lead-free bulk ceramics.