A high performance liquid chromatographic（HPLC） method was established for the rapid determination of formaldehyde in potato starch noodles.The type of derivative reagent，derivative reaction conditions and derivative stability were investigated.The separation of formaldehyde was carried out on an Agilent Zorbax Eclipse XDB-C18column（4.6 mm×250 mm，5 μm），using a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile- water（30∶70） at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min.The variable wavelength detector（VWD） was set at 412 nm.Under the optimal conditions，the calibration curve was linear in the concentration range of 0.00-0.80 mg/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.999 8.The spiked recoveries of formaldehyde in potato starch noodles were in the range of 92%-94%with relative standard deviations（RSD） of 0.75%-1.5%. The detection limit was 0.043 μg/g.The method is simple，rapid and accurate，and could be used in the determination of formaldehyde content in potato starch noodles.