The paper aims to develop an analytical method inductively coupled plasma (ICP-MS) for rapid determin-ing boric acid or borax in water-based adhesive to guarantee the quality of water-based adhesives for packaging. The wa-ter-based adhesives were completely dispersed and demulsified with nitric acid solution by the vortex oscillation. The solution was centrifuged at high speed and determined by ICP-MS, and the concentration of extracting nitric acid solution and the extracting time of vortex oscillation were optimized. The optimum concentration of nitric acid solution was 15% (volume fraction) and the extraction time of vortex oscillation was 20 minutes. The results showed that the detection limit of boron acid was 9.43 μg/kg. The recoveries were in the range of 97.0% to 103.0% and the relative standard deviation was 3.0% (n=6). This method is simple, rapid and accurate, and suitable for rapid determination of boric acid or borax in water-based adhesive for packaging. A small amount of boric acid/borax residual is found in the actual samples, but they all meet the requirement of specific migration limit of 6 mg/kg in GB 9685.