The invention discloses a low-complexity method for selecting HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) coding multiple reference frames. The method comprises the following steps of inputting an original coding sequence, taking a code tree cell as the unit, and selecting the optimal reference frame for each coding cell through the operations of a, if the parent coding unit of the current coding unit is in an SKIP mode, taking the optimal reference frame of all forecast cells in the current coding unit as the optimal reference frame of the parent coding unit, and b, if the parent coding unit of the current coding unit is not in the SKIP mode, firstly selecting multiple reference frames for forecast cells in an inter-frame dividing mode of 2N*2N of the current coding unit, and calculating the rate distortion cost of each reference frame in the 2N*2N inter-frame dividing mode, gathering all reference frames of which the rate distortion costs are lower than a threshold in a reference frame set, and selecting the optimal reference frame for the rest inter-frame dividing modes in the reference frame set. The low-complexity method is capable of remarkably speeding up HEVC video coding.