Mucosal vaccination offers attractive advantages to conventional systemic vaccination, such as higher levels of antibodies and protection at the airway surface. This review gives an overview of recent experimental and clinical data on nasal, oral and sublingual vaccines against bacterial respiratory pathogens, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae , Haemophilus influenzae , Neisseria meningitidis , Moraxella catarrhalis , Bordetella pertussis , Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacterium tuberculosis . Subsequently, we discuss further vaccine development that opens the focus to clinical use.