Biosurfactants have strong surface activity，good emulsification，strong antibacterial and antioxidant activity，high stability，good bioselectivity and strong environmental friendliness. Among them，lipopeptide biosurfactants have outstanding properties and are favourable substitutes for chemical surfactants in tertiary oil recovery. Lipopeptide biosurfactants could be divided into cyclic lipopeptides and linear lipopeptides according to whether the amino acids of the peptide chain were connected into a ring. The difference in the types and the arrangement sequence of amino acids in hydrophilic peptide chain，and the difference in the length and the position of branch chain in hydrophobic carbon chain，all resulted in the formation of different lipopeptide structure and biological activity. The mechanism of lipopeptide biosurfactants to improve crude oil recovery was as follows：efficiently reducing oil-water interfacial tension，promoting crude oil emulsification to form large-size micelles，changing reservoir rock wettability，reducing water phase relative permeability，and so on. The results of laboratory experiments and field tests of lipopeptide biosurfactants for crude oil exploitation showed that lipopeptide bio-oil displacement system could effectively reduce the cost of oil displacement agent while obtaining the same effect of enhanced oil recovery as chemical flooding，which confirmed the feasibility for improving crude oil recovery. Nevertheless，the high-yield pathway of lipopeptide synthesis in the upstream，the low-cost purification process in the downstream and the formation adaptability in the actual reservoir were still unclear，which limited the commercialization promotion of lipopeptide biosurfactants in the oilfield.