Abstract: Lactic acid bacteria are commonly used as probiotic, and often associated with food production and preservation. Therefore, the enumeration of viable lactic acid bacteria cells, as the important index of products has become an important task for the quality control and functional evaluation of its related products. In this paper, the latest research progress on the detection methods of viable lactic acid bacteria cells at home and abroad was reviewed. The working mechanism, advantages and disadvantages of each method were analyzed, which was focus on the PMA combined qPCR method as well as the digital PCR method. The existing problems in this research field were pointed out and the follow-up research trend were forecasted. This paper provided a reference for promoting the progress on enumeration methods of viable lactic acid bacteria cells in food products.