Garlic (Allium sativum L. 2n=16), belongs to the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, which is the most important edible bulbous crops of the world. The aim this paper was to review recent efforts achieved towards garlic crop improvement through biotechnology. Both asexual and sexual method of reproduction is possible. However; commercial garlic cultivars only propagated through vegetative method. The increase of genetic variation through conventional crossing is nearly absent. The lack of sexuality in garlic limits the source of variability for breeding program of economically important traits, such as tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, earliness, yield and quality. Biotechnological tools such as micro propagation, meristems culture (in order to obtain virus-free plants), somaclonal variation, and genetic transformation, have a great role for successful propagation, preservation, and breeding and for its subsequent production in garlic. Tissue culture has been applied to the establishment of germplasm banks in various parts of the world where valuable garlic collections are maintained for medium and long term (cryopreservation).Somaclonal variation and genetic engineering could play an important role by generating genetic variation for genetic improvement of garlic. The some achievements on herbicide resistance, insect and diseases resistance have been obtained by genetic transformation. However, the somaclonal variants and genetic transformation needs more investigations to identify the optimal explant type with appropriate culture condition. DNA markers such as RAPDs, AFLPs, SSR and DNA fingerprinting have been used for phylogenetic and taxonomic studies, germplasm conservation, detection of fertile genotypes, disease resistant genotypes of this spice, medicinal, and cash crops in the world as whole.