Abstract: In order to determine the perchlorate levels in cigarette packaging materials rapidly and accurately, a high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed to quantify the perchlorate in papers used for cigarette (including tipping paper, inner liner paper, carton and packet packaging paper). After extraction by water and multistep purified by SPE cartridges, the samples were separated on IC-Pak HR column with CH₃CN-CH₃CO₂NH₄ solution as mobile phase, and determined by mass spectrum under multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The results showed that: 1) With the multistep cleanup and addition of ¹⁸O-labeled internal standard, the ion suppression at different concentrations was substantially alleviated. 2) The calibration curve was linear in the range of 0.2-20.0 μg/L with correlation coefficient more than 0.995. The mean values of intra- and inter-day RSDs were all less than 8%, the spiked recoveries ranged from 95.2% to 105.5%, and the LOD and LOQ were 1.13 and 3.77 μg/kg, respectively. 3) Using 100 tested samples, the detection rate of perchlorate was 9% with the highest level of 0.048 mg/kg, which was much lower than the maximum values regulated by US FDA. This method is convenient, sensitive, accurate and suitable for determination of perchlorate in papers for cigarette.