Fuel production from renewable and carbon-neutral biomass has attracted much attention due to concerns for the depletion of petroleum reserves and global warming by greenhouse gases. Microalgae offer several advantages over conventional biomass as they have faster growth rate, do not require agricultural land for growth, and consume less water than terrestrial biomass. However, crude bio-oil from noncatalytic liquefaction of microalgae has a high content of oxygen, limiting its direct applications for transportation fuel. The high oxygen content suffers from some drawbacks such as lower energy density, poor oxidation stability and high corrosivity, so it should be deoxygenation upgraded as a high grade fuel. In this review, the effect of reaction atmosphere and nature of catalyst on the reaction pathways of the deoxygenation of fatty acids model compounds is discussed firstly. Then, related researches are reviewed based on crude oil of microalgal. Finally, problems in current bio-oil catalytic deoxygenation technologies, improvement advices and future prospect are also presented.