All submarines with fuel cells built until today are based on hydrogen storage in metal hydride storage cylinders. This technology offers many advantages regarding the special requirements of submarines, but the AIP energy that can be stored onboard is limited due to the high weight of the metal hydride storage cylinders - a submarine can only carry a limited number of hydrogen storage cylinders. This technology is therefore limited to small-medium sized submarines. The navies future demand tendency is to develop bigger sized submarines. This potential problem is solved if the hydrogen is produced onboard, instead of being stored in metal hydride form. A methanol reforming technology development is applied to obtain the hydrogen for the Fuel Cell to power the submarine. This article gives an overview about the methanol reforming development goals, the current status and the further steps to achieve a fully submarine-proven system layout. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.