OBJECTIVE： To establish the method for the determination of 9 illegal dyes in Carthamus tinctorius. METHODS： HPLC-MS/MS was adopted. The determination was performed on SB-C18 column with mobile phase consisted of 10 mmol/L ammonium formate-acetonitrile （gradient elution） at the flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The column temperature was 30 ℃， and the sample size was 10 μL. Mass spectrometry condition： electrospray ion source， negative ion multi-ion reaction monitoring mode， ion spray voltage of 3 500 V， drying gas temperature of 350 ℃， drying gas flow rate of 10 L/min， colliding gas of high pure nitrogen gas， scanning range of m/z 50～1 000. RESULTS： The linear ranges of ponceau， acid red 73， lemon yellow， azorubin， allura red， gold orangeⅡ， sunset yellow， pyrosine and golden orange G were 5.313 5～531.35 ng/mL（r＝0.987 0），1.312 0～1 312.00 ng/mL（r＝0.994 8），124.480 0～2 824.00 ng/mL（r＝0.983 2），6.300 0～630.00 ng/mL（r＝0.964 8），1.035 8～517.92 ng/mL（r＝0.996 4），0.552 0～1 104.00 ng/mL（r＝0.909 0），5.046 3～2 018.52 ng/mL（r＝0.996 2），5.046 3～2 018.52 ng/mL（r＝0.997 6），1.079 5～2 159.00 ng/mL（r＝0.990 0），respectively. The limits of quantitation were 10.418 7，1.131 0，68.401 0，13.695 7，1.670 7，0.238 0，3.973 3，1.064 7，1.285 0 ng/kg. The limits of detection were 3.125 6，0.339 3，20.520 3，4.108 7，0.501 2，0.071 4，1.192 0，0.319 4，0.385 5 ng/kg， respectively. RSDs of precision， stability and reproducibility tests were all lower than 3.0％. The recoveries were 91.2％-99.1％（RSD＝0.7％-2.2％，n＝6）. CONCLUSIONS： The established method is specific， sensitive， simple and rapid， and can be used for the detection of 9 illegal dyes in C. tinctorius.