The invention discloses a short circuit fault current limiter which comprises a coupling reactor, a first fast switch and a second fast switch. The first fast switch, one arm inductor of the couplingreactor and the second fast switch are sequentially connected in series. The other arm inductor of the coupling reactor is connected in parallel between the input end of the first fast switch and theoutput end of the second fast switch. When a system fails, the first fast switch and the second fast switch are simultaneously turned off. One arm inductor of the coupling reactor is cut off from thesystem, and the other arm inductor of the coupling reactor accesses a power grid to limit fault current. According to the invention, when a short-circuit fault occurs, the fast switches do not need tobreak full-capacity short-circuit current, and the breaking current is related to the parameters of the coupling reactor; when two arm inductors of the coupling reactor are equal, the fast switches simply need to cut off half fault current; the impact of fault current on the system is reduced; and the breaking reliability of a circuit breaker is improved.