Tidal current turbine is one of the innovative and emerging technologies of marine renewable energies because it offers constant and predictable energy source that can be very beneficial, especially for commercial scale production of electrical power. Hydrofoils (HF) are essential elements of tidal current turbine (TCT) and should be properly designed as they play a vital role in improving the turbine output and providing adequate resistance to the blade structure. In connection with the hydrofoil designs, it is noteworthy that the primary objectives in their designs are to increase the coefficient of lift and to reduce the coefficients of drag and pitching moment, thus delaying the cavitation phenomenon. In this paper, the technology developments of the hydrofoil designs used in the horizontal axis TCT industry are reviewed, including the hydrodynamics design and the mechanical structure design. Besides, an up-todate review and the newest achievements of marine TCT technologies with their developing histories are further explored. Included are also reviews on the numerical models used to assess the performance of TCT and optimization methods applied to design the hydrofoils. This in turn significantly contributes to a better knowledge on the recent designs of TCT hydrofoils for the researchers working in the marine turbine energy domain. Such information could also have important implications in the design of more sophisticated hydrofoils for the exploitation in diverse tidal current energy technologies for reaching a sustainable future. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.