In order to determine the content of total sulfur in tobacco with ion chromatography, the total sulfur in tobacco was converted into sulfate by microwave digestion treatment, and the digestion and acid removal conditions were investigated. The proposed method was validated by the analyses of national standard material, bush twigs and leaves, and the total sulfur and inorganic sulfur in some tobacco leaf samples were analyzed by this method and direct extraction-ion chromatography, respectively. The results showed that: 1) the recoveries of total sulfur ranged from 94.8% to 101.9% with the RSD of <2%, the method demonstrated higher sensitivity, accuracy and repeatability; 2) the inorganic sulfur contents in the tested samples significantly positively correlated with total sulfur contents (r=0.9934).