Despite advances in the therapy of cardiovascular disorders, heart failure remains a challenging disease with a dismal prognosis. A plethora of variables have been shown to be related to survival in patients with heart failure. These include heart failure etiology, clinical presentation, ventricular performance, exercise capacity, neurohormones and, more recently, inflammatory and necrosis markers. In this review we briefly list established predictive markers and discuss whether survival can accurately be predicted in this condition.