The invention discloses a rapid positioning method based on TDOA (Time Difference Of Arrival), mainly aiming to solve the problems when a tested target performs position solution depending on TDOA detected by a plurality of signal receivers under near and long distance scenes. The method mainly comprises the steps of: coordinate and distance equation establishment, centre distance solution, object coordinate solution, distance constraint and spherical surface relation constraint establishment, and solution of object coordinate corrected solution. The method can solve the problem of passive detection and positioning of an underwater vehicle, and can also be used for solving other positioning problems based on TDOA, such as radio positioning, ultrasonic wave positioning, indoor positioning, etc. Compared with a commonly used Chan algorithm, the rapid positioning method based on TDOA solves the problem of inconformity of near distance and long distance algorithms and existence of fuzzy solution, and furthermore improves precision and stability; compared with a Taylor algorithm, the rapid positioning method based on TDOA does not need external initial value and recursion operation, substantially reduces arithmetic labor, but does not change precision and stability.