A method for the determination of maleic hydrazide (MH) in tobacco and tobacco products was established, in which MH in tobacco sample was extracted with a solvent, and cleaned up by a solid phase extraction cartridge, then detected with high performance liquid chromatography. The residue of MH in 23 tobacco samples was determined. The results showed that: 1) Good results were obtainable when tobacco sample was extracted with 4 mol/L hydrochloric acid under heating and refluxing for 1 hour. 2) The MH peak was completely separated from impurity peaks in 20 minutes by reversed-phase HPLC with a Varian Microsorb-MV 100-5 C18 column under isocratic elution with 0.1 mol/L acetic acid as mobile phase at a flow-rate of 0.7 mL/min. 3) The recovery of MH was 97.11% with the relative standard deviation (RSD) of 7.13%. This method is suitable for the determination of MH in tobacco and tobacco products.