Literature data published mainly during the two last decades and dealing with the preparation, structure and catalytic activities in hydrotreating reactions with rhenium sulfide has been reviewed. These compounds have been particularly evaluated in model compounds reactions as thiophene hydrodesulfurization and quinoline hydrodenitrogenation. In both cases it has been observed that rhenium sulfide was among the most active transition metal sulfides (TMS) and sometimes better than industrial CoMo/Al2O3 and NiMo/Al2O3, the sulfiding conditions appearing to be a crucial step to get highly active catalysts as previously observed for ruthenium sulfide based catalysts. Interest in these catalysts is maintained for real feed in gas oil hydrodenitrogenation reaction (HDN), even if the promoting effect induced by Co or Ni is low compared with classical molybdenum catalysts. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.