The inception of the tip vortex cavitation (TVC) is a very important problem in cavitation researches. The study of the mechanism of the TVC inception is not only conducive to its prediction, but also helps to suppress or suspend the occurrence of cavitation. In this paper, the research progresses on the TVC inception including theoretical, experimental and numerical studies mainly in the last two decades are reviewed. It is shown that the TVC inception is affected by complicated factors, such as the water quality, the average pressure and the fluctuating pressure. In the scaling law for the determination of the TVC inception, all these factors are considered. To precisely describe the scaling law, more investigations are needed to understand the effects of the water quality and the fluctuating pressure.