China is a country with high incidence of esophageal cancer. In recent years, with the deepening research, the value of neoadjuvant therapy in locally advanced resectable esophageal cancer has been widely approved by clinicians, compared with surgery alone or adjuvant therapy. However, the survival results of different neoadjuvant therapy options may be quite different, and many problems remain unresolved. In this article, a systemic literature review was carried out to summarize the radiotherapy target, radiotherapy dose, chemotherapy regimen of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and time to surgery, as well as review the research status and progress on targeted therapy and immunotherapy as neoadjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer.