OBJECTIVES: Visual impairment has been identified as one of the most significant contributors to lost independence, affecting 1.3 million people in the USA. An emphasis on improvement of functional limitations among patients with visual impairment has led to the development of vision-related quality of life (QOL) questionnaires in the recent past. The objective of this paper is to provide an updated review of published literature on vision-related QOL instruments and an assessment of their psychometric properties. METHODS: A review of published literature was carried out through the use of MEDLINE and QOLID in order to identify vision related QOL instruments. The instruments were reviewed in terms of reliability, validity and sensitivity/responsiveness, as well as their length and applicability to various eye disorders. RESULTS: Twenty-four vision-related QOL instruments were identified, of which thirteen were designed for self-administration. Length of the questionnaires varied from 10 to 136 items, and the structure of scales also varied greatly. Most of the instruments showed high internal consistency of scales but only few demonstrated test-retest reliability. Ten of the instruments focused primarily on visual function, while fourteen also measured the impact of vision problems on functional ability. The NEI-VFQ (51 items) and NEI-VFQ-25 are the only self-administered questionnaires that evaluate eye-related functional ability and that have shown evidence of validity, internal consistency and responsiveness across a broad range of eye disorders including glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration and cytomegalovirus retinitis. CONCLUSIONS: For research that requires a self-administered measure of vision-related QOL, the NEI-VFQ-25 appears to be the optimum choice. It has demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties across several QOL domains with minimal respondent burden.