The invention belongs to the technical field of physical and chemical inspection of harmful substance residues in inner liners, tipping paper and carton packaging paper for cigarettes, and particularly relates to a method of measuring the residual amount of 4-aminoazobenzene in paper for the cigarettes. The method specifically comprises the following steps: reducing an azo substance into aromatic amine by sodium dithionite in an alkaline solution; then extracting the aromatic amine in the solution by using tert-butyl methyl ether; carrying out solid-phase dispersion extraction, and then measuring by using a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry; carrying out internal standard method determination. According to the method disclosed by the invention, the defects of a sample processing method in the prior art are overcome; a sample pretreatment method and instrument detection conditions are optimized, aiming at the tipping paper and the inner liners for the cigarettes, cigarette strips and carbon packaging paper samples. Since a solid-phase extraction column is not needed to pass, instead the simpler and more convenient solid-phase dispersion extraction is used, and the tedious purification and concentration steps, such as rotary evaporation is not needed, the method disclosed by the invention has the advantages of accuracy in operation, high recovery rate, high sensitivity and the like and is rapid, simple and convenient.