The invention discloses a method for detecting vinyl acetate in cigarette sidestream smoke. The method comprises the steps of trapping particulate matters in the cigarette sidestream smoke by using a glass fiber filter element, connecting two serially connected absorbing bottles respectively filled with 50mL of organic solvents behind a trapper, trapping vinyl acetate in a sidestream smoke gas phase substance under the condition of low temperature cooling (not more than -70 DEG C); after a cigarette is smoked, taking out the absorbing bottles in which cigarette smoke samples are collected, mixing absorbing solutions, after uniformly oscillating, directly sampling to perform gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and quantifying by using an external standard method. According to the method, the preparation is simple, the sensitivity is high, the repeatability is good, and batch and accurate analysis of vinyl acetate in the cigarette sidestream smoke can be realized.