The invention discloses a method for detecting the total iron content in an iron material by X fluorescent cobalt internal standard-ICP cobalt compensation. The method comprises the steps of: by usinga cobalt internal standard method, establishing an iron element working curve by an X-ray fluorescence method to detect the total iron content in an iron material, and calculating the compensation coefficient of cobalt for the total iron content based on a ratio of the iron element content to the element strength and the cobalt element strength; establishing a cobalt element working curve by using ICP spectroscopy to detect the content of cobalt elements in iron material; multiplying the cobalt element content by the compensation coefficient, and adding the product to the total iron content measured by the X-ray fluorescence method to obtain the total iron content in an iron sample to be detected. The method detect multiple elements simultaneously, detect a single sample within 18 minutes, has a detection speed nearly 10 times faster than a national standard method, a half detection cost of a national standard manual method, and a detection result error superior to a national standard.