An overview of recent advances, mainly focusing on the past 5–6 years, in microwave-assisted heterogeneous catalysis is provided. The work includes three major parts; (i) a survey of traditional and new, bio-, often waste-inspired catalysts for potential large scale processes and current issues in microwave chemistry, such as the energy efficiency and scale up of such reactions, (ii) applications with solid acid/base catalysts and (iii) transition metal-catalyzed reactions. In the application part of the survey the examples are presented by major reaction types. Given the nature of the work the focus is placed on sustainable applications and individual examples will be evaluated regarding to their potential contribution to green synthesis.