Semen is usually used as the critical evidence in the sexual assault cases. To determine whether the body fluid or stain observed in the crime scene is the semen or its stain will be helpful for criminal investigation. This report provides an overview of the principles, strengths and weaknesses of current methods for semen identification following the classifications of preliminary tests, confirmatory tests and the developing methods. In addition to the descriptions of the traditional methods in this report, the developing methods for semen identification, such as the methylated DNA and RNA identifications, were also included. We look forward to provide the candidate methods of semen identification for forensic practice.