Because of its rustproof property, stainless steel is widely used in kitchen appliances, building materials, electronics, chemical plants and automobile exhausts. In addition, the utilization of stainless steel for fuel cell application is growing. As the demand for this material increases, it is necessary to study the basic properties of stainless steel such as corrosion resistance, heat transfer, formability, cutting or shearing ability and weldability. In this article, the mechanical properties, formability and press forming performance of stainless steel are reviewed. Since temperature and strain rate affect the press forming performance of STS304(austenitic) stainless steel, the influence of these parameters on the plastic behavior should be investigated. Moreover, measures for the prevention of ridging of STS430(ferritic) and delayed fracture of STS430, which respectively appear during and after press forming, should be considered. Recently, stainless steel sheets with a thickness lower than 0.2 mm have been widely used in applications for mobile phone, digital camera and fuel cell separator. Therefore, there is a growing interest of studying the grain size effect and plasticity at the crystal scale in order to understand the anisotropic behavior and micro forming ability of thin sheets. This review paper was written with the objective of helping engineers and researchers to understand the forming characteristics of stainless steel and to establish standards in plastic forming techniques.