Transitional metal phosphides (TMPs) have been attracted much attention as potential anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, due to their high theoretical capacity, good thermal stability and low cost. In this work, a rational design of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MCNTs) modified porous CoP/carbon composite (CoP/C@MCNTs) has been realized using metal-organic framework as templates. The CoP/C@MCNTs hybrids with small CoP nanoparticles embed into the three-dimensional carbon skeleton are well incorporated with MCNTs. Owing to their unique architecture, the as-prepared CoP/C@MCNTs composite exhibits promising lithium storage performance with a reversible capacity of 547.5 mAhg(-1) at a current density of 500mAg(-1) after 200 cycles and a discharge capacity of 290.2mAhg(-1) can still be maintained at a high current density of 3000mAg(-1). We believe that the interesting strategy for syntheticmethod in this work can open up a way to design other TMPs-based anode materials.