Partial nephrectomy has been a gold standard in treatment of small kidney tumors for some time now. Open, laparoscopic and robot-assisted laparoscopic approach are in use today. With development of radiological methods and their more frequent use, especially the use of an ultrasound, the tumors of kidney are detected in early T1a stage, when they are smaller than 4 cm, more frequently today. That lead to increase in number of partial nephrectomies and to improvement of surgical techniques. In the beginnings, partial nephrectomy was indicated in patients with solitary kidney, bilateral tumors and impaired renal function. With development of surgical techniques, indications for partial nephrectomy spread to all T1a stage tumors. That is particularly useful in some of the patients who have pathohistological diagnosis of benign or low malignant kidney tumors in which case the radical nephrectomy would be an overtreatment. Partial nephrectomy achieves the preservation of kidney mass due to which the renal function is also preserved and renal failure risk is decreased. With preservation of renal function, the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and better quality of life are also achieved. The main goals of surgical techniques development are shortening the ischemia time and reducing the damage of the remaining renal parenchyma in order to achieve the better preservation of renal function. Aside from that, the minimally invasive approaches are developed, just as techniques for lesser blood loss and techniques for reduction in frequency of positive margins and relapses. Currently, partial nephrectomy is the first choice in small renal tumor management, especially if done with minimally invasive technique.