This review provides a comprehensive overview of scientific research on plasma treatment of polymer powders over the last 40 years. The current state of the art is described with special focus on basic research in the laboratory and commercially available technologies in industrial applications. Different reactor systems with low‐pressure and atmospheric pressure plasma are presented. Then, numerous application examples of plasma‐treated polymer powders are presented together with a brief overview of the experimental test results. Furthermore, the effects of the process parameters on the final properties of the polymer powders are discussed. Attempts are made to determine similarity parameters and correlations between the generated surface functionalities. Finally, some suggestions for future research are given.