The invention relates to the technical field of relay protection pressing plates, in particular to a method for recognizing the in-out service state of the relay protection pressing plate based on color template matching. The method adopts a template matching technology, uses the steps of image photographing of the relay protection pressing plate, image preprocessing, template acquisition, image recognition and the like, avoids the defects that different types of protection screens need to design different algorithms, reduces the difficulty of use, has high practicality, solves the influence of the photographing angle and the distance on the recognition result, can be applied to a handheld terminal or a mobile phone, greatly facilitates the use for operating personnel, adopts a RGB color normalization method, eliminates the effects of light and improves the reliability of recognition.