Fuel cell vehicles (FCV) have become a promising transportation tool because of their high efficiency, fast response and zero-emission. However, the cold start problem is one of the main obstacles to limit the further commercialization of FCV in cold weather countries. Many efforts have made to improve the cold start ability. This review presents comprehensive heating methods and influence factors of the research progress in solving the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) system cold start problems with more than 100 patents, papers and reports, which may do some help for PEMFC system cold start from the point of practical utilization. Firstly, recent achievements and goals will be summarized in the introduction part. Then, regarding the heating strategies for the PEMFC system cold start, different heating solutions are classified into self-heating strategies and auxiliary-heating heating depending on their heating sources providing approach. Then, the next part will review the main influence factors for PEMFC system cold start, including the fuel cell stack, PEMFC system integration and design, cold start control strategies. Shutdown purge and heating are effective ways to realize cold start for PEMFC system. Finally, conclusion part will present the future work, including improving the system design, enhancing shutdown purge uniformity for the stack, avoiding components freezing in low temperature, focusing on the frequency of cold starts and getting the relationship between the number of cold starts and the voltage deterioration, et al. Based on this review, hoping to be beneficial to improve the automotive PEMFC system cold start ability and broad application of fuel cell power system.