Abstract The effective separation of gases and liquids by membranes containing ionic liquids actually belongs to one of the challenging topics in membrane community. During last decade, a plenty of new kinds of ionic liquids (IL), their combinations, different types of polymerized ionic liquids and polymer–IL composite membranes were developed and tested. This review summarizes the most important achievements and findings connected with the ionic liquid based membranes research and tries to answer how to focus future development in this field in order to obtain in the end potential close-to-market applications. Fundamental issues of development of supported ionic liquid membranes (SLIM), polymerized IL membranes and polymer–IL gels are thoroughly analyzed and the dead-ends of the ionic liquid membrane research are identified.