In recent years, photocatalytic technology, driven by solar energy, has been extensively investigated to ease energy crisis and environmental pollution. Nevertheless, efficiency and stability of photocatalysts are still unsatisfactory. To address these issues, design of advanced photocatalysts is important. Cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanomaterials are one of the promising photocatalysts. Among them, hollow-structured CdS, featured with enhanced light absorption ability, large surface area, abundant active sites for redox reactions, and reduced diffusion distance of photogenerated carriers, reveals a broad application prospect. Herein, main synthetic strategies and formation mechanism of hollow CdS photocatalysts are summarized. Besides, we comprehensively discuss the current development of hollow-structured CdS nanomaterials in photocatalytic applications, including H-2 production, CO2 reduction and pollutant degradation. Finally, brief conclusions and perspectives on the challenges and future directions for hollow CdS photocatalysts are proposed. (c) 2020 The Chinese Ceramic Society. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).