In the last few decades, significant improvements toward the development of environmentally benign processes have been achieved in the liquid-phase Friedel-Crafts acylation reactions. Many efforts have been devoted to the research on solid catalysts adequate to substitute homogeneous protonic acids or Lewis acids as traditionally employed catalysts in the acid-catalyzed FriedelCrafts acylation processes. This short article describes the recent developments on catalysis by gallium (Ga), indium (In) and thallium (Tl) based novel heterogeneous solids for the liquid-phase Friedel-Crafts acylation of aromatics by acyl halide. The above heterogeneous catalysts are efficient for Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction and exhibited superior activity than the traditionally employed strongly acidic solid catalysts. Unlike conventional acidic catalyst, the acylation activity of Ga, In and Tl based solids, additionally having redox functions, does not depend solely on their acidic properties, even present. These solids in their non-acidic or basic form also show high acylation activity. Based on the catalytic results over these novel solids a plausible reaction mechanism for the acylation is proposed.