Developing an antibiotic-free wound dressing with effective hemostasis and antibacterial and antioxidant capacity is highly desirable. In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol-tannic acid porous nanofiber sponge (3D-TA) was prepared via electrospinning. Compared with two-dimensional (2D) fiber membrane, the unique fluffy 3D-TA nanofiber sponge had high porosity, water absorption and retention ability, hemostatic capacity. Furthermore, the 3D sponge functionalized by tannic acid (TA) endow the sponge with high antibacterial and antioxidant capacity without loading antibiotics. In addition, 3D-TA composite sponges have shown highly biocompatibility against L929 cells. The in vivo experiment shows the 3D-TA is enable to accelerate wound healing. This newly 3D-TA sponges hold great potential as wound dressings for future clinical application.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-023-01922-2.