Background: Poor water solubility of the therapeutic compounds has become a very challenging issue for the delivery of drugs through conventional approaches. Over 40% of newly discovered active compounds also have a lack of water solubility and are lipophilic in nature. One approach for increasing the oral bioavailability of therapeutic agents is to deliver the drug via a self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS). Although many studies have been carried out, there are few drug products on the pharmaceutical market formulated as SEDDS, confirming the difficulty of formulating hydrophobic drug compounds into such formulations. Objectives: This review aims to describe the SEDDS formulation, its composition, as well as the manufacturing techniques and recently developed formulations, and also highlights an important characterization test for the evaluation of SEDDS. Methodology: Relevant literature was searched in English using different databases, i.e. Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus. Results: Within recent years, SEDDS was also discovered for oral administration of hydrophilic macromolecular drugs such as peptides, proteins, polysaccharides and pDNA. SEDDS are stable blends of surfactants, oils, solvents, and co-solvents. This system of drug delivery is useful for improving the aqueous solubility of drugs. They could be manufactured by the spray cooling method, the melt granulation process, the lyophilization technique, and by extrusion or spheronization. Various characterization tests, such as zeta potential, viscosity, dispersibility, cloud test, percentage transmittance, etc., could also be performed to confirm the stability of the SEEDS. Conclusion: Recently, many formulations have been developed for the delivery of drugs through the use of SEEDS and have shown increased bioavailability of the drug, as well as many promising outcomes.