Laser with the high brightness and good direction is irradiated to the object to be cleaned. After laser beam is absorbed by the pollution layer and/or substrate, with such processes as light stripping, vaporization, the adhesion force between pollutants and substrate is overcome so that pollutants leave the surface of the object, to achieve the purpose of cleaning, while causing no damage of the object itself. After the 1980s, laser cleaning technology has received more and more attentions. In the past 40 years, as a new efficient environmental cleaning technology, laser cleaning technology has developed rapidly and has been used in electronic components cleaning, cultural relics maintenance, paint and rust removal and other fields. Since 2010, further research on laser cleaning has been carried out, and great achievements have been made in the detection and intelligent control of laser cleaning. Breakthroughs have been made in the mechanism of laser cleaning. Chinese scientists have also made great contributions. The paper summarizes the principle, characteristics, origin and development of laser cleaning technology in the past 40 years, and introduces the development of laser cleaning in China in recent years.