High-performance ferric phosphate (FePO4), with well-defined ellipsoid morphology and uniform particle size distribution, is successfully fabricated via a green spray drying method with formic acid as additive. It is found that the added formic acid plays a crucial role for the formation of the well-distributed FePO4 particles. Benefited by the outstanding structure and properties of ferric phosphate prepared above, a high performance of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) has been prepared. It exhibits high capacity, especially at high charging/discharging rate (158.4mAhg−1 at 0.2C and 107.3mAhg−1 at 10C), and excellent cycling stability (without capacity fading after cycling for 200cycles at 1C). All these impressive electrochemical performance could be ascribed to the FePO4 precursor, and further attributed to the addition of formic acid, which may play as a template, resulting in the well-defined morphology, uniform particles size distribution, hierarchical pore structure, and high surface area of the ferric phosphate.