The invention relates to a surfactant used in the production of washing powder, in particular to a method for producing sodium fatty acid methyl ester sulfonate, which solves the problem that the prior art cannot realize continuous, stable industrialized mass production. Hydrogenated palm-methyl stearate is adopted as material, and is sulfonated by SO3 gas on a multi-tube film reactor, steps, such as aging, reesterification, dealcoholization, neutralization, bleaching and vacuum drying, are then sequentially carried out, so that sodium fatty acid methyl ester sulfonate product is obtained, the content of MES is more than 80 percent, the content of disodium salt is less than 5 percent, the content of free oil is less than 2.5 percent, the content of sodium methyl sulfate is less than 8 percent, and color is less than 60 klett(5 percent A.M). Because highly selective catalyst is added in the aging process, the production of deep-colored by-product is reduced; because the reesterification reaction and the bleaching reaction are separately carried out, the safety of reaction is enhanced, and the consumption of methanol as solvent is greatly reduced; because vacuum dealcoholization is carried out before sulfoacid neutralization, industrialized operation can be easily carried out, and meanwhile, the safety problem of methanol in the subsequent bleaching step is eliminated.