Alkali metal salts of organic acids can be applied as a burn modifier to the paper. Levels of these additives are typically between 0.5% and 3 % of the paper weight. These additives will also play a role in taste and flavour of smoke. The alkali metal salts provide a whiter ash and increase static burn rates. Hence it is necessary to quantify the citrate salts to monitor the quality of the cigarette paper. There are several methods for quantification of citrate in cigarette paper reported in the literature viz titration method and enzymatic method. All the above methods involve lengthier and laborious procedures. We have developed a simple method using HPLC which does not involve any sample preparation and it is very simple. The cigarette paper was extracted with 0.1% orthophosphoric acid, filtering the solution and injecting in HPLC. Citrate was converted into citric acid and separated using 5µ C18 column using 0.1% orthophosphoric acid as mobile phase and quantified at 210 nm. The recovery of citric acid from cigarette paper was greater than 95% and there is no matrix effect found in the above method. The results from the above method were also compared with the literature method and the results are in close agreement.