Haloacetic acids (HAAs) in drinking water have attracted more and more attention of researchers due to their higher potential combination of chlorine, their carcinogenic and mutagenic effects and higher carcinogenic. The formation mechanism, analytical methods, the effects of many factors on HAAs formation such as precursor types, chlorine doses, pH, temperature, bromide, reaction time and seasonal change, toxicological character and the minimizing technology of HAAs in resent studies about HAAs are discussed in details in this paper. Further researches are still needed to clarify the formation mechanism of HAAs and find a feasible minimizing technology. New concerns including toxicological characters that correlate with human and other HAAs exposure routes besides oral ingestion (i.e., inhalation and dermal adsorption) should be put forward.