Hypoparathyroidism is the most frequent complication in thyroid surgery. Technology improvements in medical field tends to help reducing complication in surgery and in recent years fluorescence-guided surgery technology has been largely developed and has been used in many different surgical fields. In endocrine surgery a recent but actively researched field is near infrared fluorescence imaging and several groups have each detailed their methodology and reported on the observed utility of their approach. Overall fluorescence-guided surgery has been shown to assist in lowering the postoperative hypoparathyroidism in thyroid surgery. The objective of the current review is to give an overview of the different fluorescence imaging techniques and applications in order demonstrate the value of fluorescence imaging in protecting parathyroid glands during thyroid surgery.