Concerns about the environment and fossil fuel depletion led to the concept of "hydrogen economy", where hydrogen is used as an energy carrier. Nowadays, hydrogen is mostly produced from fossil fuel resources by natural gas reforming, coal gasification, as well as the water-gas-shift (WGS) reaction involved in these processes. Alternatively, bioethanol, glucose, glycerol, biooil, and other renewable biomass-derived feedstocks can also be employed for hydrogen production via steam reforming process. The combination of steam reforming and/or WGS reaction with in situ CO2 adsorption is able to enhance the reaction above the thermodynamic equilibrium to produce more hydrogen, which is known as sorption-enhanced reaction process (SERP). In this review, research on thermodynamic studies, material developments, adsorptive reactor investigations, and cyclic operating process design for hydrogen production by SERP in recent decades has been surveyed and future research on these emerging areas has been discussed.