ABSTRACT Animal models are important tools to predict human in vivo percutaneous absorption/penetration. Monkey, pig, rat, rabbit, guinea pig, hairless rodents, such as hairless rat, hairless mouse, hairless guinea pig and hairless dog, are among the most used animals for this purpose. Each animal model has its own advantages and weakness or limitation. To better correlate animal data with human skin absorption, we need to be familiar with each animal model's characteristics as well as experimental method and condition. We reviewed the original papers published after 1993 that described permeability of both animal skin and human skin. It showed that monkey, pig and hairless guinea pig are more predictive of human skin absorption/penetration and common laboratory animals, such as rat, rabbit, guinea pig, generally overestimate human skin absorption/penetration. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Animal models are important tools to predict human in vivo percutaneous absorption/penetration. Monkey, pig, rat, rabbit, guinea pig, hairless rat, hairless mouse, hairless guinea pig and hairless dog are the most used animals. Each animal model has its own advantages and weakness. We reviewed the original papers published after 1993 that described permeability of both animal skin and human skin. It showed that monkey, pig and hairless guinea pig are most predictive of human skin absorption.