An indirect spectrophotometric method, presumably heretofore unmentioned, for the rapid determination of COD in the presence of chloride of high concentration is described. The alkaline sample is refluxed to react with a definite amount of permanganate, present in excess. A photometric measurement at 535 nm for the extent of the fading of the permanganate color after refluxing completes the procedure. The optimum conditions which give the absorbance-concentration plot the maximum linearity and slope in the range of 0∼5 ppm COD are as follows: reflux at $100circC$ for 10 min in the presence of 0.15 mM permanganate and 0.2% NaOH with a sample size of 5 ml. An overall running time was less than 15 min. The t-test reveals that the proposed method is not significantly different from the official method.