With the advantages of inherent compactness, high beam quality and excellent heat dissipation, ultrafast fiber lasers have already shown their huge potential in various scientific and industrial applications. In fact, the operating wavelength of the ultrafast fiber laser is critical for specific applications. In recent years, thanks to the unique spectral characteristics, 1.7 μm ultrafast fiber lasers have unparalleled applications in biomedicine, polymer processing, optical imaging and other fields. Therefore, developing high performance ultrafast fiber lasers in the 1.7 μm band has become a research hotspot in the laser community. In this paper, the progress of 1.7 μm ultrafast fiber lasers was reviewed and a comprehensive overview of the different methods enabling ultrafast generation at 1.7 μm waveband was given. The latest advances in 1.7 μm dissipative soliton fiber laser and chirped pulse amplification system reported by our group were introduced. The principles and technical challenges were also outlined. Finally, the application prospect and development tendency of 1.7 μm ultrafast fiber laser were prospected.