Cell differentiation in yeast species is controlled by a reversible, programmed DNA-rearrangement process called mating-type switching. Switching is achieved by two functionally similar but structurally distinct processes in the budding yeast  Saccharomyces cerevisiae  and the fission yeast  Schizosaccharomyces pombe  In both species, haploid cells possess one active and two silent copies of the mating-type locus (a three-cassette structure), the active locus is cleaved, and synthesis-dependent strand annealing is used to replace it with a copy of a silent locus encoding the opposite mating-type information. Each species has its own set of components responsible for regulating these processes. In this review, we summarize knowledge about the function and evolution of mating-type switching components in these species, including mechanisms of heterochromatin formation,  MAT  locus cleavage, donor bias, lineage tracking, and environmental regulation of switching. We compare switching in these well-studied species to others such as  Kluyveromyces lactis  and the methylotrophic yeasts  Ogataea polymorpha  and  Komagataella phaffii  We focus on some key questions: Which cells switch mating type? What molecular apparatus is required for switching? Where did it come from? And what is the evolutionary purpose of switching?