The invention discloses a synthesis method of methyl 4-bromopyridyl-2-formate, which comprises the following steps: (1) heating 2-methyl-4-bromopyridine and an oxidizer KMnO4 in a water medium to react, filtering, and carrying out acid precipitation on the filtrate to obtain an intermediate I; and (2) reacting the intermediate I and N-methyl-N-nitrosourea under the catalytic action of alkali, filtering the reaction solution to obtain a crude product, and purifying to obtain the methyl 4-bromopyridyl-2-formate. The method disclosed by the invention is simple to operate, does not need special equipment (such as electrochemical equipment) or use abundant strong acid in the synthesis process, has the advantages of low equipment investment, low cost for waste liquid treatment, small environmental hazard, high product purity and high yield (up to higher than 60%), and is suitable for industrial scale-up production.