Cold-drawn pearlitic steel wires exhibit ultrahigh strength and have important applications where high strength and wear resistance are required. The hypereutectoid compositions present a promising potential for increasing the mechanical properties, especially the strength. The austenitization process strongly influences the following pearlitic microstructure and thus the mechanical properties. Continuous heating is always used in the industrial processing. However, the austenitization of pearlite in hypereutectoid steels during continuous heating has not been investigated systematically. In this work, the dilatometer and DSC were employed to investigate the austenitization kinetics of hypereutectoid steels during continuous heating. Microstructure evolution was observed with SEM and EBSD. The dilatometer and DSC curves were analyzed with derivative method. The whole austenitization can be divided into five stages: initial microstructure, reverse eutectoid transformation, retained cementite dissolution, homogenization and homogeneous austenite. Tangent method was used for measuring the critical temperatures of different stages. Experimental determination of transformed fraction was obtained through the lever method. Calculation with Thermo-Calc and Dictra software was carried out for the austenitization and considered to be a reasonable result by comparing with the experimental data. There is a turning point for the reduction rate of cementite and formation of austenite at the finishing temperature of reverse eutectoid transformation, which is similar with the austenitization in low carbon steel and spheroidal pearlite of hypereutectoid steel. Effects of heating rates, initial microstructure and carbon content were studied by varying the relevant parameters. Higher heating rate increases the starting and finishing temperatures of reverse eutectoid transformation and widens the temperature range, has no effect on the finishing temperature of retained cementite dissolution, increases the finishing temperature of homogenization. Coarser initial pearlitic microstructure increases the starting and finishing temperatures, widens the temperature range for reverse eutectoid transformation, increases the finishing temperature for retained cementite dissolution and homogenization. Enhancement of carbon content has little effect on the reverse eutectoid transformation, but increases the finishing temperature for retained cementite dissolution and homogenization. The effects mentioned above on the austenitization kinetics were discussed for mechanism analysis and compared with the observations of relevant systems provided by other research.