Continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites （CFRTP） have been widely used in civil and military fields such as aerospace and avitation， automotive， energy and marine engineering， due to their excellent mechanical properties， fatigue resistance and design flexibility. In order to meet the requirements of large-scale， efficient and low-cost production， simulation can be used in the CFRTP product development stage instead of expensive trial-error tests. In this paper， various methods of CFRTP thermoforming simulation are introduced in detail， and the advantages and limitations for each method are summarized. In addition， the research emphases and development trends of CFRTP molding simulation in the future are prospected.