Biomass, one of the most abundant renewable resources on earth, plays an important role in achieving the "dual carbon" goals. Pyrolysis, a highly promising technology for biomass utilization, can produce bio-oil to replace traditional fossil fuels for producing high-value fuels or chemicals. However, the complex nature of biomass pyrolysis and the numerous factors influencing product distribution require the development of kinetics models to guide the process. Kinetics modeling research helps not only reveal the physical and chemical changes during pyrolysis but also predict the pyrolysis reaction rate and distribution of major products. While early global models laid the foundation for understanding the pyrolysis mechanism and paving the way for more detailed models. A recent shift in research focus from maximizing bio-oil production to maximizing high-value chemicals has driven the emergence of semi-detailed and detailed models incorporating more mechanistic information and capable of predicting individual product yields. This review primarily introduces the research progress of biomass pyrolysis kinetics modeling, categorized into global models, semi-detailed models, and detailed models, and also provides an outlook on the future development of this field.