Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) remain attractive among advanced energy conversion technologies due to their high energy density and simple system configuration. Although they made an early market entry but failed to attain a large-scale commercialization mainly because of their inferior performance sustainment in lifetime operations and high production costs. There have been lots of R&D efforts made to upgrade the long-term durability of DMFCs to a commercially acceptable standard. These rigorous efforts have been useful in gaining insights about various degradation mechanisms and their origins. This review first briefly describes the recent progress in lifetime enhancement of DMFC technology reported by various groups in academia and industry. Then, it is followed by comprehensive discussions on the major performance degradation routes and associated physico-chemical origins, and influence of operational parameters, together with the methods which have been employed to alleviate and restore the performance losses. Finally, a brief summary of the presented literature survey is provided in conjunction with some possible future research directions. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.