Tropical crops， including banana， papaya， sugarcane， cassava， rubber tree， oil palm， etc， are of importance in Chinese agriculture， which not only provide raw materials for our daily life and industrial and agricultural production， but also contribute to the main agricultural output and economic growth in tropical and subtropical zones of China. There are many barriers in tropical crops in use of modern molecular breeding techniques， such as polyploidy， heterozygous， vegetative propagation， long juvenile phase and large size of plants， etc. The genetic improvement of tropical crops through conventional breeding is troublesome， time-consuming， low efficiency and less progress. The development of genome editing technologies has brought a new way in tropical crops breeding. CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome editing has been widely used in plants， profited from its higher targeting efficiency， versatility and ease of usage. This approach has been applied in banana， cassava， rubber tree， and sugarcane. Here， we focus on the recent advances based on CRISPR/Cas9 methodologies， and summarize their application in tropical crops breeding， as well as propose future perspectives and challenges in improving tropical plants.