Fiber-reinforced composite materials are increasingly used in the rotorcraft structures to reduce weight and improve efficiency. The rotorcraft industry is constantly in need of higher-performance materials that offer improved mechanical strength and stiffness at a lower weight. This work introduces the composite materials typical application cases and development trends of foreign rotorcraft structures and summarizes the state-of-the-art of civil rotorcraft composite structures, also presents the future technical requirements of higher-performance composites. The overview shows that there exist technical gaps for rotorcraft composite applications between the civil and western. The conclusion shows that higher-performance structural composites, advanced functional composites, structural and functional integrated composite materials, low-cost composite integrated technologies and high-confidence virtual validation technologies of composites will be the future focus.