Information security is a crucial part of a nation’s core competitiveness. Based on the fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, quantum key distribution (QKD) realizes information encryption being independent of computational complexity, thus becomes an important element of the next-generation technology for information security. With the development during the last thirty years, QKD technology, combined with the decoy-state method, has become mature. Especially, the BB84-protocol QKD system has been deployed for practical application. Seeking and pursuing better underlying schemes and fundamental technologies is the best way to promote the development of QKD. By utilizing high-dimensional quantum states for the encoding and decoding procedures, high-dimensional QKD (HD-QKD) can transfer a larger amount of information and possess stronger noise resistance ability. Therefore, it has been a fast-growing branch of QKD and strongly supports further development of QKD. The degree of freedom of orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons possesses a Hilbert space with infinite dimensionality in principle, and hence is a potential resource for HD-QKD. In this paper, the development history and important progress of HD-QKD technology based on OAM photons are reviewed, and the challenges to be overcome and the trends of HD-QKD technology before practical applications are also discussed and prospected.