Abstract: In recent years, rechargeable zinc-air batteries (ZABs) have attracted a lot of attention owing to their high theoretical specific energy density, high security and environmental friendliness, and was considered as one of the viable options for powering the grid and electric vehicles in the future. In ZABs, the activity and stability of the bifunctional catalysts for oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reactions have significant influences on the energy density, power density and lifetime of the batteries. Therefore, developing efficient and stable bifunctional catalysts have become an important direction for researchers. This review presents the activity sources of different types of transition metal oxide catalysts and their performance in terms of energy density, charge/discharge voltage and stability in ZABs, and summarizes the current research status about the strategies and methods to improve their catalytic performance.