Renal cell carcinoma is a malignant tumor originating from the renal parenchyma. Different subtypes of renal cell carcinoma have different pathological features and molecular mechanisms. Because radiotherapy and chemotherapy are difficult to achieve ideal therapeutic effect on renal cell carcinoma, targeted therapy based on vascular endothelial growth factor and mammalian target of rapamycin will eventually in the case of drug resistance, it is currently necessary to explore a new way to improve the treatment status of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. With the continuous research and exploration of programmed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors, immunotherapy certain effects have been shown in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors have considerable prospects for single-agent or other drug treatment in renal cancer, and the long-term adverse reaction rate of this drug is low. At present, there are studies that treat PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors in combination with radiochemotherapy, anti-tumor drugs and surgery, bringing new hope to patients who are not sensitive to radiochemotherapy, are resistant to drugs, and have lost surgery. While PD-1 or PD-L1 also significantly improves overall survival in monotherapy. This article reviews and summarizes the application and research progress of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in renal cell carcinoma in recent years, and reviews them.