Abstract: To gain a deeper understanding of the moisture changes in tobacco leaves during the drying process, tobacco drying mechanisms, the influencing factors of drying kinetic parameters, moisture prediction models and existing numerical simulation methods for roller drying were summarized and reviewed. The results showed that: 1) The tobacco drying process includs three stages: preheating drying, constant-speed drying and speed-down drying. Drying rate, effective moisture diffusion coefficient and apparent activation energy are three drying kinetics parameters that describe the migration and diffusion of internal moisture in cut tobacco. The effective moisture diffusion coefficients during lab-scale tobacco drying are in the range of 1.35×10^-11 to 7.72×10^-10 m²/s and the activation energies are between 12.57 and 38.64 kJ/mol. The parameters of tobacco drying kinetics are mainly affected by the physical properties of cut tobacco and drying conditions. The physical properties include the porosity, thickness, variety, stalk position and origin, while the drying conditions significantly influence the moisture diffusion rate in cut tobacco as external factors. Thin layer drying model and reaction engineering approach (REA) model are the two main moisture prediction models for tobacco, and the thin layer drying model is the most widely utilized. However, there is a lack of a universal moisture prediction model for the drying process for cut tobacco. Existing numerical simulation studies mainly focus on the internal temperature and humidity distribution patterns of roller drying process and the retention time and degree of mixing for cut tobacco within the roller.