Abstract: A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method was developed for determining the eugenol in mainstream cigarette smoke. The effects of different solvents and trap means on the extraction efficiency of eugenol were investigated. The chromatographic conditions, including internal standard, characteristic ions and programmed heating, were optimized. The eugenol in samples of some commercial cigarettes and the cigarettes made of single grade tobacco was analyzed with the developed method. The results showed that:Under the optimized conditions, the calibration range of eugenol at 0.05-5 mg/L was of good linearity with the correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.9993, the recoveries of standard addition at three levels (high, medium and low) ranged from 104.50% to 110.52% with the intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 3.31% and 5.87%, the limits of detection and quantification of eugenol were 0.06 and 0.20 μg/cig., respectively. This method was simple, sensitive, accurate and suitable for the rapid determination of eugenol in mainstream cigarette smoke.