Abstract: For determining the eight volatile carbonyl compounds (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, acrolein, propionaldehyde, crotonaldehyde, 2-butanone, and butyraldehyde) in cigarette filter, a liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) method was developed. The cigarette filters were extracted by shaking with acetonitrile aqueous solution (1:1, V/V), then the extract derivatively reacted with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine. The derivatives were analyzed by LC-ESI-MS/MS in negative ion mode. Four types of cigarette filter (i.e. cellulose acetate filter, activated carbon filter, polypropylene fiber filter, and paper filter) samples were selected for the optimization and characterization of analytical method, and their filtration efficiencies to the eight carbonyl compounds were also investigated. The results showed that:1) The developed method featured simple pretreatment and high sensitivity, and the detection limit for the eight carbonyl compounds ranged from 0.0044 to 0.0430 μg/cig. 2) The recoveries of standard addition of the eight carbonyl compounds were from 92.8% to 118.4%. 3) The precisions of intra-day and inter-day were all less than 10% for whole or part of cigarette filters. 4) The filters in the order of filtration efficiency to the eight carbonyl compounds were activated carbon filter> cellulose acetate filter> paper filter> polypropylene fiber filter. The filtration efficiencies of the said four filters to the total content of the eight carbonyl compounds were all less than 5%, though their filtration efficiencies to formaldehyde and crotonaldehyde were higher.