Homogeneous gold catalysis has experienced extraordinary development since the dawn of this millennium. Oxidative gold catalysis is a vibrant and fertile subfield and has over the years delivered a diverse array of versatile synthetic methods of exceptional value to synthetic practices. This review aims to cover this topic in a comprehensive manner. The discussions are organized by the mechanistic aspects of the metal oxidation states and further by the types of oxidants or oxidizing functional groups. Synthetic applications of oxidative gold catalysis are also discussed.