Static SIMS is now widely accepted as a surface mass spectrometry technique providing surface analysis with a very high degree of chemical precision. Many early catalyst-based studies of adsorption and surface reaction helped to establish this capability. These studies demonstrated the sensitivity of static SIMS to surface chemical structure. However, although the capability of static SIMS to characterize surface chemistry with high precision has great potential in this area, it has not been as widely applied in catalytic studies as might have been expected. By reviewing three very different studies from our own laboratory, this paper illustrates the capability of static SIMS to study the detail of surface reactions at single-crystal metal surfaces, to monitor and investigate the surface chemistry of an auto-exhaust catalyst and to investigate ice-catalysed reactions responsible for ozone depletion in polar stratospheric clouds.