The invention relates to a turntable error detection method based on a multi-station etalon laser tracking system. When measurement is carried out, a laser tracker is arranged at a fixed position according to certain layout, and the center of the laser tracker is defined as a base station position. A mirror is arranged on a turntable, and rotates with the turntable. According to the method, the mirror measures the turntable movement at different positions; the distance between each measurement point to the base station is used to determine the spatial position coordinate of the base station and each measured point through a BFGS optimization algorithm; the difference between the actual coordinate and the theoretical coordinate of each measured point is used to determine the spatial error of each measured point; an error separation equation is established through the transformation of a spatial right angle coordinate system; and six errors of the turntable are acquired by solving the equation. The method has the advantages of high precision and fast measurement, and is suitable for the rapid detection of turntable rotation errors of a numerical control machine tool.