Abstract: Rare earth metals are widely used in metallurgy, petrochemical industry, glass ceramics and other fields, they are important components of modern high-tech new materials (permanent magnet materials, polishing materials, catalytic materials, etc.). The high output of rare earth in China has led the international community to generally believe that China has monopolized the global production and refining supply of rare earth metals, which has led to serious supply risks for importing countries. Therefore, research on recovery and reuse of rare earth metals has been carried out one after another. This paper reviews the current and future potential of rare earth element recovery. And mainly includes recovery of rare earth metals from scrap products, industrial waste in production process, industrial solid and liquid waste containing rare earth elements.