The continuously increasing mass activity of precious metal in formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR) is the key to achieving the practical application of direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs). Herein, Rh-based dual-metal atomic pairs supported on nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts [DAP-(M, Rh)/CN] with adjacent interatomic Rh-M (M = V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu) have been synthesized by a "host-guest" strategy. It is discovered that DAP-(Cr, Rh)/CN shows the highest mass activity of 64.1 A mg