This paper presents a theoretical and experimental investigation of the transmission and sensing characteristics of the biconically tapered cladded multimode fibers. The beam propagation method was used to examine the transmission characteristics with various structural parameters. The results show that the transmission of the biconically tapered cladded multimode fibers is sensitive to the mode of the input optical beam and the refractive index of the external medium. A refractive index sensor for the external medium was proposed based on the theoretical analysis, and its feasibility was demonstrated experimentally.