Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) that seriously affects human health. As one of the TB high-burden countries worldwide, there is a need to strengthen the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis in China. It is estimated that the proportion of people with latent TB infection (LTBI) in China is close to 20% of the total population. Effective identification of LTBI, thus enabling early diagnosis and preventive treatment, is one of the key measures to control the TB epidemic. Existing methods of diagnosing TB infection are unable to distinguish LTBI from active TB (ATB), and cannot accurately predict progression of LTBI to ATB, while biomarkers are expected to have the potential in differentiating LTBI from ATB and predict progression. In this paper, we summarize the recent advances in biomarkers associated with LTBI and address the future development trends, in order to provide ideas for finding new markers for precisely identifying LTBI.