Accumulating evidence shows that many scavenger receptors (SR), including SR‐A, MARCO and CD36, represent an important part of the innate immune defence by acting as pattern‐recognition receptors, in particular against bacterial pathogens. Several SR are expressed on macrophages and dendritic cells, where they act as phagocytic receptors mediating non‐opsonic phagocytosis of pathogenic microbes. Another important function of some SR is to act as co‐receptors to Toll‐like receptors (TLR), modulating the inflammatory response to TLR agonists. On bacteria, the SR ligands have commonly been reported to be lipopolysaccharide and lipoteichoic acid, but recent advances in the field indicate that bacterial surface proteins play a more important role as target molecules for SR than previously thought. Interestingly, recent data show that major pathogens, including Streptococcus pyogenes and the group B streptococcus, have evolved mechanisms to evade SR‐mediated recognition. Moreover, intracellular pathogens, such as hepatitis C virus and Plasmodium falciparum, utilize the SR to gain entry into host cells, focusing interest on the importance of SR also in the molecular pathogenesis of infectious diseases. This review highlights the complex interactions between SR and pathogenic microbes, and discusses the role of these interactions in host defence and microbial pathogenesis.