An analytical method for the simultaneous determination of 144 pesticide residues in traditional Chinese medicinal herbs was established based on optimized QuEChERS with gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS). The influences of different extraction solvents, different buffer systems and different purifying agents on the recoveries of the pesticides were investigated. The pesticide residues in the samples were extracted with acetonitrile, then cleaned-up by mixed sorbents and analyzed by GC-MS/MS in multi-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The external standard method was applied to quantify the pesticides. The linear range of the method was from 20 to 2 000 microg/kg with the correlation coefficients (r2) of more than 0. 983. The recoveries of the pesticides at the spiked levels of 20, 50 and 200 microg/kg ranged from 74.3% to 111.8% with the relative standard deviations lower than 15%, except for acephate, amitraz and aldrin. The method was successfully used for the analysis of target pesticides in testing samples, and had a good consistency in results with the existed standard one. This multi-residue analytical method allows for a rapid, efficient, sensitive and reliable screening and quantitative analysis of the target pesticides in traditional Chinese medicinal herbs.