The single strand nucleic acid based aptamer could bound to targets with high sensitivity and specificity. Gold nanoparticles have strong particle space optical effects and could take a color change from red to blue when the dispersed nanoparticles were aggregated. Aptamer could be immobilized through covalent coupling or direct adsorption to the surface of gold nanoparticle. Various approaches have been designed for biosensing based on the target induced aptamer-gold nanoparticle system color changes. The recent developments in the gold nanoparticle-aptamer based colorimetric biosensing assays were reviewed and the directions for future research were discussed and proposed.