Increasing mass transfer rate and adsorption amount are always challenges in the field of surface protein imprinting. In order to promote the development of protein purification, surface imprinted tubular carbon nanofibers (SIPTCFs) with self-driven property are first developed in this paper. The carrier is tubular carbon nanofiber obtained by hypercrosslinking reaction, carbonization and carboxyl functionalization. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) and polydopamine (PDA) are used as template and imprinted polymer layer, respectively. The resulted materials contain cavity and porous tube wall, which make the osmotic pressure difference between inside and outside of SIPTCFs during the adsorption process. Thereby it endows the SIPTCFs self-driven specific adsorption performance. The SIPTCFs have high specific surface area, reasonable pore structure and self-driven properties. They are the main reasons for accelerating the adsorption process and increasing the adsorption amount. The adsorption amount of SIPTCFs to BSA can reach 541.99 mg/g within 60 min. In addition, SIPTCFs can recognize the target protein BSA with high selectivity from the mixed proteins of HSA, Lyz, Cyt C and Bhb as well as fetal bovine serum (FBS). Because of the excellent reusability and separation ability for actual samples, SIPTCFs will be intensely promising materials for protein separation and purification.