The development of 1-day surgery has determined the need to adopt anaesthetic techniques that allow a quick discharge. While this is possible with loco-regional techniques, general anaesthesia has a longer recovery period because of the pharmacological profile of currently available drugs. Over the last few years, pharmaceutical research has been developing new drugs that guarantee a rapid elimination and a predictable offset to be employed in day surgery. Among these drugs, remifentanil is a new opioid which seems promising in regard to these characteristics. In this review we present pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics of remifentanil and the possible clinical implications that result from its use in 1-day surgery.