The conventional methods to evaluate the corrosion resistance of organic coatings include insolation, salt spray, immersion, dry-wet cycling and weather resistance. These approaches are qualitative and require a long test cycle, thus making them inappropriate for rapid test. Here we review the applications and the progress of the steady-state and transient electrochemical tests in the organic coating evaluation. The steady-state methods include potentiodynamic polarisation curve method and polarisation resistance method, which measure the polarisation resistance and corrosion rate of the coatings. These methods have been widely applied for failure analysis of the organic coatings. The transient methods including Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Local Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (LEIS), Scanning Kelvin Probe (SKP) method and electrochemical noise (EN) are mainly used to study the protection mechanism and to detect the coatings defects. In this review, it is pointed out that the EIS is mostly widely used for investigating the properties and mechanisms of the organic coatings. In recent years, Wire Beam Electrode (WBE) method, Scanning Electrochemical Microscope (SECM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) have been developed to study the physical and chemical reactions of the metal/coating interface. The applications, advantages and limitations of the recently reported methods are described. To get an insight in the protection behaviour of the organic coatings, multiple methods in different aspects are required to give a comprehensive evaluation on the coatings service life.