Abstract: Sodium-ion batteries （SIBs） are recognized as a crucial supplement to lithium-ion batteries in fields such as low-speed electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage, with substantial industrial application potential. They benefit from sodium’s inherent advantages, including high crustal abundance （approximately 2.36%）, wide distribution, low cost, and electrochemical properties comparable to those of lithium-ion batteries. Hard carbon materials are regarded as the mainstream candidate anode materials for SIBs, as their interlayer spacing is suitable for sodium ion intercalation/deintercalation and excellent cycling stability is exhibited. Particularly, coal-based hard carbon derived from coal precursors is well-adapted to large-scale energy storage requirements, owing to its prominent features of low cost, high carbon yield, and facile scale-up of preparation processes. However, affected by the inherent aromatic structure of coal, coal-based hard carbon is generally plagued by bottleneck problems, such as low reversible specific capacity （mostly below 300 mAh/g）, poor rate performance, and insufficient initial Coulombic efficiency, which severely restrict its application in high-performance SIBs. In-depth studies demonstrate that these issues are primarily caused by inadequate regulation of the nanopore structure, resulting in poor sodium ion transport pathways, excessive irreversible intercalation sites, and difficulty in achieving efficient and reversible sodium storage. Research progress of coal-based hard carbon for sodium storage is systematically reviewed, with focus placed on the sodium storage mechanism, precursor selection, and structural regulation strategies during thermochemical conversion. Excessive aggregation of condensed aromatic hydrocarbons is efficiently inhibited, and the crystallite size, interlayer spacing, and pore distribution of hard carbon are regulated via thermochemical conversion preparation methods, such as the selection of low-rank coals （e.g., lignite, long-flame coal）, introduction of non-aromatic components, and full utilization of inherent salt components in coal. On this basis, various regulation strategies during thermochemical conversion are further discussed in detail, including carbonization process control, cross-linking reaction, pore-forming engineering, and coating modification. These strategies enable the directional construction of closed/supermicroporous structures suitable for reversible sodium storage, thereby facilitating simultaneous improvements in the plateau capacity, initial Coulombic efficiency, and rate performance of coal-based hard carbon. Finally, the future development of high-performance and low-cost anode materials for SIBs is prospected by integrating current industrial demands and technical bottlenecks. The importance of thermochemical conversion in the directional regulation of the microstructure of coal-based hard carbon is emphasized, providing a reference for advancing the industrial application of coal-based hard carbon and the iterative upgrading of sodium-ion battery energy storage technology.