•State-of-the-art review on friction type passive energy dissipation devices.•Development and application of passive dry friction damper is presented chronologically.•Limitations, challenges, and uncertainties associated with friction dampers are discussed.•Future research directions are highlighted. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review on friction type passive energy dissipation devices. Friction dampers are highly preferred as an energy dissipation device, particularly for the seismic fortification of the engineering structures due to their simplicity, reliability, and maximum energy dissipation as a result of the generation of rectangular hysteretic loops. Additionally, their performance is not significantly influenced by the loading amplitude, frequency, and the number of cycles. Hence, with a better understanding of friction mechanism and behavior, numerous novel passive dry friction dampers have been invented and applied in the field of civil engineering since 1980. However, decades of studies over these dampers are highly scattered throughout the academic community. Hence, the availability of many valuable pieces of research is out of reach for further studies. Therefore, a holistic chronological detail of advancement (development and application) in the field of passive friction dampers has been presented systematically in this study. The major purpose of this paper is to present an integrated and holistic overview of passive friction damper for the ease of further studies and generate future research directions for researchers who will be working in this field.