The use of natural plant fibers to reinforce cement-based materials has attracted recent attention. Compared with synthetic fibers, natural plant fibers have many advantages, such as green environmental protection, light weight, low cost, renewable, etc., and are widely used in many fields. However, natural plant fibers cannot be directly applied to cement-based materials since they are easy to absorb water and swell and have a poor compatibility with cement matrix. Therefore, a proper pretreatment of natural plant fibers is needed to improve the adverse effects of natural plant fibers on the properties of cement-based composites. This review represented , recent work on the development of different pretreatment methods for natural plant fibers (i.e., water treatment, coating treatment, steam treatment, alkali treatment, acid treatment, silane coupling agent treatment and mixing treatment) based on the structure and material composition of natural plant fibers, as well as the effect of the pretreatment method on the properties of natural plant fiber reinforced cement-based composites.