Abstract: In order to determine the residual amount of formamide in artificial leather accurately and rapidly, in present work, methanol, acetone, ethanol, ethyl acetate and acetonitrile were applied to extract formamide from artificial leather samples. After ultrasonic extraction, formamide was analyzed with high performance liquid chromatography qualitatively and quantitatively, by using water- acetonitrile as mobile phase. It was found that when acetonitrile was used as solvent, formamide had the highest extraction rate. The HPLC method established in this paper is simple and highly sensitive. The linear range of this method is 0.1 mg/L to 1.6 mg/L, the linear correlation coefficient equals 0.9999. The average recovery is in the region of 83.4%-85.7% and the relative standard deviation ranges from 0.28% to 0.93%. The limits of detection and quantification of the method are 0.11 mg/kg and 0.36 mg/kg, respectively, which were lower than those of conventional gas chromatography (GC)and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS)methods. This method is simple and applicable to a wide range. It is not only suitable for the detection of formamide residues in artificial leather, but also suitable for the determination of formamide residues in foaming products such as rubber plastic insulation materials, EVC floor mats and yoga mats.