In this paper, the catalytic activity of thirteen different metal chlorides in aqueous solution for the conversion of xylose into furfural was studied in comparison with both the auto‐ and HCl‐catalyzed reactions. A maximum furfural yield of 60.3 mol % was reached with the addition of FeCl3 to the aqueous xylose solution. However, the catalytic efficiency of FeCl3 decreased on use of birch hydrolysate as a raw material, resulting in 43.5 mol % furfural yield. The obtained experimental results were incorporated in a kinetic modeling study. The assessed reaction rates for xylose dehydration to furfural and xylose decomposition to byproducts, in the presence of AlCl3 and CrCl3 are significantly higher than during acid‐catalyzed conversion. The logarithms of the reaction rates show a linear correlation with the ionization energy as well as with the acidity of the metal ions.