Abstract: A review on the recent progress of methods for detection of phthalate esters, covering years from 2001 to 2010, was presented, relating especially to methods of : ① FT-IRS; ② GC, including SPE-GC, SPME-CGC and LPME-GC; ③ Liquid chromatography, including HPLC, rapid solvent extraction-HPLC and MECC; ④ Chromatography in hyphenation with mass spectrometry, including GC-MS, SPE-GC-MS, SPME-GC-MS, MPD-GC-MS and LC-electrospray-MS; and ⑤ New rapid mass spectrometry. A brief on future prospection was also given (42 ref. cited).