Purpose of review: The appropriate duration of antimicrobial treatment in patients with pneumonia remains a matter of controversy. The purpose of this article is to review different approaches that have been used to determine the duration of antimicrobial therapy mainly driven either by the antibiotic chosen, isolated pathogen, host characteristics, or severity of the disease. Recent findings: When considered individually, every approach has strengths and weaknesses. Targeting the duration of antibiotic therapy based on a single biomarker, such as procalcitonin, is a promising approach that showed a reduction in antibiotic exposure in different settings, diseases, and study populations. Furthermore, an individualized approach according to time to reach clinical stability takes into account...