The work aims to determine the benzene series residues in hot melt adhesives by establishing a method of solvent extraction/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The conditions of solvent extraction and instrumental analysis were optimized. The hot melt adhesive samples were treated by ultrasonic extraction and refrigerated centrifugation in turn. Then the extract was determined with GC-MS to acquire the content of benzene series residues in hot melt adhesives. The detection results were also compared with those obtained by head space-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HS-GC/MS). The linear correlation coefficients of 6 benzene series were determined in the proposed method and they were greater than 0.9992; the limits of quantitation (LOQs) were in the range of 0.03～0.07 mg/kg, and the recovery rate was in the range of 89.1%～103.1%. The results of the actual samples determined in the proposed method were well in agreement with those determined in the headspace sampling method. 70 commercially available hot melt adhesive samples were determined in the proposed method. The determination results showed that the benzene residue was lower than 0.18 mg/kg with detection rate of 4.3%, and the residues of toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, m-xylene and o-xylene ranged from 0.10 mg/kg to 58.68 mg/kg with detection rate higher than 92.9%. The proposed method is characterized by simplicity, rapidness and high accuracy, etc. and it is applicable to the determination of benzene series residues in hot melt adhesives.