A good understanding of the effects of galvanizing on the short-and long-term behaviours of steel components is essential for structural design.This review paper is motivated by a series of recent reports on cocking in galvanized cold-formed tubular steel structures and the limitations of current steel product standards and steel design specifications in this field.The steel-related and galvanizing-related factors,different pre-galvanizing countermeasures for brittle cracking and the available technical documents are summarized.An extensive bibliography is provided as a basis for future research and development in this field.