In order to explore a rapid identification method for transgenic soybeans, non-transgenic and transgenic soybeans were tested as the experimental samples via near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and principal component analysis (PCA) combined with back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) model. The spectrum data was collected after NIRS scanning the samples, and then analyzed by PCA plus BP-ANN model. The accumulative reliabilities of the six components were 99. 03% through the PCA. Then BP-ANN model was used to further test these six components and a three-layer BP-ANN model was developed. The final result achieved a 100% recognition rate of all 22 test samples respectively. In conclusion, the measure of NIRS and PCA combined with BP-ANN model has proved to be a rapid and accurate method to detect transgenic soybean nondestructively.