Abstract Environmental implications of the disposal of waste from the poultry industry have created the need for proper waste management. As a result, poultry litter has been proposed as a potential fuel candidate for thermal conversion technologies since it is an available source. This review discusses the recent advances in the physical and chemical characterisation of poultry litter. The focus of this review is on gasification for energy generation and current commercial combustion facilities. Significant advances have been made in the pyrolysis, gasification and combustion investigations with the aim to determine their kinetics. These results are important for modelling work and critical issues for the simulation of poultry litter gasification are discussed.