The invention discloses a variable stiffness lower limb external skeleton robot which comprised a back plate, a flexible waist adjusting mechanism, hip joint mechanisms, thighs, knee joint mechanisms,shanks, ankle joint mechanisms, two driving degrees of freedom and three driven degrees of freedom. A driving control system is arranged on the back plate, the flexible waist adjusting mechanism is fixed with the back plate and connected with the thighs through the hip joint mechanisms, and the thighs are connected with the shanks and the ankle joint mechanisms through the knee joint mechanisms.According to the variable stiffness lower limb external skeleton robot, driving is performed by the aid of a variable stiffness driver, so that the robot is smooth in movement and high in safety, physical structures of lower limbs of human bodies can be effectively fitted by the aid of the two driving degrees of freedom and the three driven degrees of freedom, length adjusting mechanisms are arranged at the waists, the thighs and the shanks, so that the robot can adapt to physical sizes of different users, and the robot is wearable and has flexibility in the movement by the aid of the flexiblewaist adjusting mechanism. The robot can be applied and popularized in aspects of rehabilitation training, boosting and the like.