The invention provides a method for recycling trimethylacetic acid from pivaloyl chloride rectification raffinate. According to the technical scheme, the method has the experiment ideas that components and contents of pivaloyl chloride rectification raffinate are analyzed firstly on the basis of experiment means, on the basis, procedures such as hydrolysis, layering and rectification are confirmedaccording to chemical properties of pivaloyl chloride and trimethylacetic anhydride, and trimethylacetic acid is recycled. Specifically, the method comprises the following steps: firstly, adding a certain amount of pivaloyl chloride rectification raffinate, controlling specific temperature and pressure, adding a proper amount of water for hydrolysis reactions for multiple times to sequentially convert pivaloyl chloride and trimethylacetic anhydride into trimethylacetic acid, leaving to stand to layer water-containing phosphorous acid and a crude trimethylacetic acid product, feeding back thecrude trimethylacetic acid product to a trimethylacetic acid rectification procedure, and performing decoloring refining. By adopting the method provided by the invention, more than 90% of the pivaloyl chloride rectification raffinate can be converted into trimethylacetic acid, so that the utilization rates of raw materials are increased, the wastes are reduced, the environment protection burden of companies is alleviated, and meanwhile the production cost of products is effectively reduced.