The invention relates to a vertical reference detection method of a tide gauge station by using a GNSS buoy, and belongs to the technical field of vertical reference detection of a tide gauge station. The present invention includes the following steps: S1: GNSS precision level measurement, S2: on-site deployment of GNSS buoys, S3: erection of GNSS static reference stations, S4: setting of GNSS observation time, S5: calculation of GNSS buoy SSH, S6 : Data filtering of tide signal SSH, S7: Elimination of SSH geoid difference, S8: Unification of GNSS and vertical datum of tide gauge station. The present invention uses high-precision GNSS altimetry buoys to observe the sea surface height information under the WGS-84 reference ellipsoid datum, avoids the above three problems, conveniently and economically deploys in sea areas near marine stations, and avoids reference displacement errors and levels of tide gauge stations Measurement errors are accumulated, and tide gauge station benchmarks are unified in any sea area (including) remote sea islands and reefs.