Litopenaeus vannamei is an important aquaculture species in China, and its production ranks first amongall crustaceans. However, owing to it being a non-native species and its germplasm being limited by its origin inforeign countries, after a period of dividend farming, negative problems such as slow growth, and a low survivalrate, and poor disease resistance have gradually appeared, causing huge losses to shrimp farming. In response tothese problems, researchers in China have actively conducted shrimp breeding and have achieved certain resultsby cultivating several new varieties. In recent years, the development of genetic improvement technology foraquatic animals has been rapid, and the introduction of modern molecular breeding technology has revolutionizedthe breeding of L. vannamei. In this paper, we review the status of molecular breeding technology in L. vannamei,including germplasm resource research, genome research, molecular marker mining and assisted breeding, genomeselection, and gene-editing research. It also provides an outlook on the future development trends of molecularbreeding technology for L. vannamei, with the hope of providing a reference for the breeding of new L. vannamei varieties using these modern molecular breeding techniques.