Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. At present, hepatectomy is one of the most frequent therapeutic options, whereas the high postoperative recurrence rate severely affects the long-term survival of HCC patients. Therefore, it is urgent to choose appropriate therapeutic regime to treat the recurrence of HCC to improve the long-term survival of HCC patients. Surgical treatment is an efficacious treatment for recurrent HCC, including re-hepatectomy, salvage liver transplantation and radiofrequency ablation. Currently, individualized treatment is recommended for postoperative recurrence of HCC. The selection of treatment should be conducted based on the tumor conditions after the first hepatectomy, the characteristics of recurrent tumors, baseline data of patients and recurrence time, etc., aiming to formulate appropriate treatment regimes for patients. In this article, these surgical regimes were reviewed and compared to explore appropriate surgical schemes for postoperative recurrence of HCC, aiming to provide reference for prolonging the survival of HCC patients.