Abstract: Hydrogen fuel cell is an energy conversion technology with high efficiency,environmental friendliness and zero carbon emission. However,the high cost of noble metal catalysts hinders its large-scale application. Benefitting from the advantages of high atomic utilization,high catalytic activity and low cost,single atom catalysts show excellent catalytic reduction performance for oxygen molecules,and have broad application prospects in hydrogen fuel cells. Therefore,how to design and synthesize single atom catalysts with high activity,high stability and low cost has become a research hotspot in this field. This paper focuses on the research progress of single atom catalysts including noble metal and non-noble metal in cathodic oxygen reduction reaction for hydrogen fuel cell,and puts forward the regulation strategies to enhance the performance of single atom catalysts,encompassing coordination structure,local environment,dual atom pairs,defective sites and exposure of active sites,which provides ideas and reference for the design of highefficiency oxygen reduction catalysts at atomic scale. The development opportunities and challenges of single atom catalysts for oxygen reduction in hydrogen fuel cells are prospected.