A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed to determine residues of phenothrin and silafluofen, known as synthetic pyrethroids, in agricultural commodities. Insecticide residues were extracted with acetone from representative samples of four crops which comprised rice, apple, pepper and cabbage. The extract was purified serially by liquid-liquid partition and Florisil column chromatography. For rice and pepper samples, acetonitrile/n-hexane partition was additionally adopted to remove nonpolar interferences. Reversed phase HPLC using an octadecylsilyl column was successfully applied to separate two phenothrin isomers and silafluofen from sample co-extractives. Intact parent compounds were sensitively detected by ultraviolet absorption at 226 nm. Recovery experiment at the quantitation limit validated that the proposed method could apparently determine phenothrin and silafluofen residues at 0.02 and 0.01 mg/kg, respectively. Mean recoveries of phenothrin and silafluofen from four crop samples fortified at three levels in triplicate were in the range of 82.4~109.8% and 83.7~109.8%, respectively. Relative standard deviations of the analytical method were all less than 10%, irrespective of crop types and spiking levels. A selected-ion monitoring (SIM) LC/mass spectrometry (MS) with electrospray ionization was provided to confirm the suspected residue of phenothrin, even though no sufficient ionization of silafluofen was obtained. Both phenothrin and silafluofen could be successfully confirmed by gas chromatography/MS SIM with electron impact at 70 eV. The proposed method is sensitive, repeatable and rapid enough to apply to officially routine inspection of agricultural products.