Recursive statistical process monitoring (RSPM) methods have superior monitoring performance for industrial processes, especially those with time‐varying characteristics, and have recently been studied by many researchers. However, there is no survey paper yet that summarizes and analyzes the existing RSPM methods. In this survey, approximately 60 papers related to RSPM methods are reviewed and categorized from different aspects. Existing RSPM methods are categorized using the classification criteria proposed in this study based on the ways of recursively collecting data and the stages of recursive updating. Three core algorithms that are most commonly used in RSPM methods are uniformly summarized and analyzed specifically for studying recursive computation problems in RSPM methods. Furthermore, different types of multivariate statistical process monitoring (MSPM) methods that combine recursive computation are reviewed.