With the continuous development of overseas markets for oil and gas fields, domestic and international cooperation is increasing and the use of international standards is becoming more frequent. Therefore it is important to grasp the differences in material requirements between Chinese domestic standards and international standards. During engineering design, preventing the brittle fracture of the material under low temperature condition is an important part of material selection, especially carbon steel material. However, the temperature limitations of carbon steel are different between the domestic standards/codes and the international standards/codes. Therefore, it is necessary to perform analysis for application of carbon steel materials in low-temperature environment based on different codes and standards requirements. This article summarises the impact test requirements of the carbon steel commonly used in engineering in the material standards and the minimum service temperature in the design codes. The impact toughness requirements of carbon steel were compared in accordance to the requirements in GB/T 20801.2—2020 Pressure Piping Code-Industrial Piping-Part 2:Materials and ASME B31.3—2018 Process Piping. The different requirements between the two codes on carbon steel used under low temperature and low pipe stress conditions have been thoroughly studied. Based on the understanding of performance of carbon steel material in low-temperature environment, this paper gives some suggestion on carbon steel to be used in low temperature services.