The research and development of functional, safe and economical environmental materials are an important research direction for soil remediation of heavy metal pollution. As an important component of soil organic matter, humin (HM) possesses the properties of large molecular weight and insolubility, and plays an important role in the transformation and migration of heavy metals in soil. This paper summarizes and analyzes the sources, properties and remediation mechanism of humin. The remediation mechanism of soil heavy metal pollution by humin mainly includes ion exchange, electrostatic adsorption, physical adsorption, complexation and chemical precipitation. Combining with the problems in the resources utilization of humin resources, we put forward the idea that the modification of humin is a major research direction. The results showed that the adsorption and passivation effect of humin is more prominent after physical and chemical modification. Strengthening the farmland soil experiments of humin remediation for heavy metal contamination is the inevitable course to the humin application in heavy metal contaminated soil remediation.