Abstract Desalination processes consume large amount of electricity and heat derived from fossil fuels to produce fresh water. In recent years, solar desalination emerged as a favorable method for sustainable fresh water production with less environmental impacts. A solar photovoltaic thermal collector is a combined system of solar photovoltaic and solar thermal collector that simultaneously generates electricity and thermal energy. The present work reviews photovoltaic thermal collector integrating desalination technologies such as solar still, humidification dehumidification, multiple effect distillation, reverse osmosis, multiple stage flash and membrane distillation. The primary focus is made on successful utilization of electricity and heat from the photovoltaic thermal collector in desalination systems to reduce cost, primary energy consumption and to improve overall system performance. Future opportunities and novel methods to improve/explore the photovoltaic thermal driven desalination systems are reported. Possibilities of photovoltaic thermal collector as energy source for other desalination technologies (electrodialysis, forward osmosis, vapor compression, adsorption desalination and etc.) are also presented. Comparative analysis shows that overall performance of photovoltaic thermal coupled desalination systems is better than desalination systems coupled with separate photovoltaic panel and/or solar thermal collector to meet the energy needs. The additional electricity generated from photovoltaic thermal desalination paves way for standalone desalination in remote location even though the initial costs are a tad higher.