The invention relates to a method for synthesizing a repaglinide key intermediate, namely 4-ethoxycarbonyl-3-ethyoxy phenylacetic acid. The method comprises the following steps: by taking 3-ethyoxy-4-ethoxycarbonyl-benzyl cyanide as an initial raw material, performing hydrolysis, esterification, selective hydrolysis and the like, thereby obtaining the important intermediate 4-ethoxycarbonyl-3-ethyoxy phenylacetic acid of repaglinide. According to the key intermediate, the impurities of the product is less, the purity of the product is high and can reach over 99.7%, so that the quality of the subsequently synthesized repaglinide product is improved, the 100 percent first-pass yield of the subsequently synthesized repaglinide product can be basically reached, a refining step is avoided, and the synthetic yield is effectively improved. The process is easy and convenient to operate, the yield is high, the molar yield is 69.1 percent, the production cost is low, and the method is suitable for industrial production.