Based on the characteristics of the frequency spectrum of remote sensing images, an adaptive layered quantization fast DCT image compression method is proposed.The JPEG quantization table is adaptively modified after the original image is discrete cosine transformed, then the DCT coefficients are layered quantized using the new quantization table. The real remote sensing image compression experiments show that the proposed method runs faster than standard JPEG compression method at the same compression rate, and its peak signaltonoiseratio gain is 1～2 dB. Moreover it can be used to realize embedded code stream image compression.