Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the arrhythmia that causes most arrhythmia-associated hospitalisations in the western world. In Germany it affects approximately 3 million people. The limited success rates of drug treatment stimulated an exploration of interventional treatment options for AF. As our knowledge on initiating triggers and perpetuating substrate of AF expanded, catheter ablation techniques have been developed. In this article we review the patient selection criteria according to the current guidelines, and discuss established and recently found risk factors for recurrences of AF and complications by catheter ablation that may influence current patient selection for catheter ablation of AF.