The industry of white light-emitting diodes, next-generation illumination sources, has become an interesting field for their superior advantages such as energy savings, high efficiency, long operating lifetime as well as environmental friendliness. By far, the most effective white light-emitting diode is a combination of a near-ultraviolet chip and yellow-emitting phosphors. However, this type of phosphor converted white light-emitting diode has some disadvantages, it suffers from the weakness of low color rending index and high correlated color temperature because of the deficiency of red component. Thus, to overcome this problem, a large number of red phosphors, especially the trivalent Eu³⁺ doped phosphor, have been widely studied. Eu³⁺ ion is an important red activator in most of the commercial red phosphors, which can provide an efficient and narrow band emission due to characteristic 4f-4f transitions. Especially, Eu³⁺ ions can be used to prove the point group symmetry of the substituted site in the host. When Eu³⁺ ions occupy noncentrosymmetric lattice sites, Eu³⁺ can emit intense red emission, benefiting to improve the overall efficiency of the white light-emitting diodes. So the host can affect the intensity of emission peaks of Eu³⁺ ion. Tellurate exhibits excellent properties in the optical, physical, and chemical fields. Given the low phonon energy of tellurate, this material can avoid the competitive non-radiative decay for the Eu³⁺ ions doped. Therefore, tellurate is suitable for hosting matrices used in phosphors. We report herein, the preparation and luminescent properties of red-emitting (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphor. The (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors were prepared through the high-temperature solid-state reaction at 1 200 °C for 20 h. The (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂: xEu³⁺ phosphors were prepared in this way for seven different concentrations of Eu³⁺ (x=0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5). The samples (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ were analyzed in detail by XRD, excitation and emission spectra, concentration quenching, thermal stability, luminescent decay curves, quantum efficiency, and color coordinates. To identify the detailed crystal structure information of (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors, the Rietveld refinement was performed using the Generalized Structure and Analysis System. The absence of an impurity phase in the present doping concentration ranges (0.1≤x≤0.5) confirmed that incorporation of Eu³⁺ ions did not show any notable change in Y₆TeO₁₂ phase. The refinement results were clear that the as-obtained (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors were of trigonal structure with R3(No.146) space group. Further representative particle distribution and scanning electron microscopy of the (Y_0.7)₆TeO₁₂:0.3Eu³⁺ phosphors were carried out and the results indicate that average grain size is 4.61 μm with diameter ranging from 2 μm to 8 μm. The band gap energy E_g of (Y_0.7)₆TeO₁₂:0.3Eu³⁺ obtained from diffuse reflectance spectra is 3.25 eV. The excitation and emission spectra of (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors show that the prepared phosphor can be excited by ultraviolet light (393 nm) or blue light (464 nm), and exhibits a strong red light emission band at 632 nm corresponding to ⁵D₀→⁷F₂ electric dipole transition of Eu³⁺ ions. The intensity ratio R of ⁵D₀→⁷F₂ to ⁵D₀→⁷F₁ transition (R=I(⁵D₀→⁷F₂)/I(⁵D₀→⁷F₁ )) is a good way to measure the symmetry of Eu³⁺ sites. The intensity ratio value R is calculated to be 6.338. It is higher than some reported Eu³⁺-doped phosphors. Usually, with the increase of magnitude of R, the ideal value of the color chromaticity is closer. The dependence of integrated intensity on Eu³⁺ contents reveals the optimum doping concentration is x=0.3, beyond which concentration quenching was observed. Concentration quenching for the prepared (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors confirmed that the electric dipole-electric dipole interaction was responsible for energy transfer, resulting in the concentration quenching. The integrated emission intensity of prepared phosphor (Y_0.7)₆TeO₁₂:0.3Eu³⁺ at 150℃ is as high as 76.5% of that at ambient temperature. The thermal activation energy was obtained as 0.196 9 eV, which ensures a good thermal stability. This demonstrates its possible application in solid state lighting or optical thermometry. The decay characteristics of (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors were studied to understand the average lifetime of an activator ion in an excited state. The decay curves of the prepared (Y_1-x)₆TeO₁₂:xEu³⁺ phosphors were monitored under 393 nm excitation wavelength and 632 nm emission wavelength. At doping concentrations of Eu³⁺, the luminescence lifetimes are 1 114 μs, 907 μs, 813 μs, 661 μs and 583 μs, respectively. The lifetime decreases with an increase in Eu³⁺ dopant concentration. This type of observation is results when the distance between the dopant Eu³⁺ ion decreases and this leads to nonradiative transitions. Based on the datum of emission spectrum of (Y_0.7)₆TeO₁₂:0.3Eu³⁺, the chromaticity coordinates are determined to be (0.637 6,0.343 1), close to the National Television System Committee value (0.67,0.33). To further evaluate the potential applications of the (Y_0.7)₆TeO₁₂:0.3Eu³⁺ phosphor, the prototype light-emitting diodes fabricated by coating the phosphors on the near-UV chips emit a bright light. The strong emission band (360~440 nm) originates from the near-UV chip and other sharp emission bands attribute to the Eu³⁺ 4f-4f transitions. The phosphor exhibits favorable luminescent properties, thermal stability of luminescence with good chromaticity coordinate, which have potential application in white light-emitting diodes．