The use of capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C⁴D) on miniaturized systems has increased considerably over the last few years. Since the first report, 10 years ago, several advances on the detection cell geometry, strategies for increasing the sensitivity and a wide range of applications have been reported. This review intends to cover the main features related to the instrumental setup of this detection method for analytical and bioanalytical assays on microfluidic chips.