We herein present a review of recent thermodynamic and kinetic studies on Ni-Mn-based magnetic shape memory alloys along with some new data supporting the kinetic discussion. Magnetic phase diagrams and Clausius-Clapeyron relationships are mainly discussed for Ni-Mn-Ga and Ni-Mn-In systems. For the kinetics, a phenomenological model based on Seeger's model is used to describe the temperature dependence of magnetic field hysteresis, as well as the change of hysteresis under different sweeping rates of magnetic fields.