Photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC) has emerged as an important strategy for the generation of low cost, highly efficient and sustainable hydrogen fuel. However, improvement in PEC water splitting is facing several challenges such as limited harvesting of solar light, slow charge separation rate and fast carriers recombination. Our study focuses on the brief description of PEC water splitting principle, basic working mechanism and different materials for photoanodes such as carbon and its composites, transition metals, nanomaterials and nanostructures to overcome the challenges to an extent. Numerous strategies have been discussed to investigate the performance of PEC water splitting. This work emphasized on the recent progress for sustainable hydrogen production through PEC water splitting. These photoanodic materials are good contender in future water splitting applications and enhance the overall photocurrent generation and hydrogen evolution efficiency. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.