Building information modelling (BIM) is evolving significantly in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. BIM involves various remote-sensing tools, procedures and standards that are useful for collating the semantic information required to produce 3D models. This is thanks to LiDAR technology, which has become one of the key elements in BIM, useful to capture a semantically rich geometric representation of 3D models in terms of 3D point clouds. This review paper explains the ‘Scan to BIM’ methodology in detail. The paper starts by summarising the 3D point clouds of LiDAR and photogrammetry. LiDAR systems based on different platforms, such as mobile, terrestrial, spaceborne and airborne, are outlined and compared. In addition, the importance of integrating multisource data is briefly discussed. Various methodologies involved in point-cloud processing such as sampling, registration and semantic segmentation are explained in detail. Furthermore, different open BIM standards are summarised and compared. Finally, current limitations and future directions are highlighted to provide useful solutions for efficient BIM models.