Abstract Harmonic state estimation, which highly depends on accurate synchronised phasors, is a crucial basis for the location, traceability, and governance of harmonics in power systems. However, most existing synchronous phasor measurement units (PMUs) provide power frequency phasors rather than harmonic phasors. In addition, as the dominant voltage signal provider for PMUs in power systems, capacitive voltage transformers (CVTs) have complex frequency responses and cannot be directly used for harmonic measurement. Therefore, accurate harmonic state estimation is difficult to achieve in applications. A method for harmonic voltage phasor reconstruction and harmonic state estimation based on the measurement data of a CVT is proposed. First, the reasons for harmonic voltage measurement errors were analysed. Second, the scattering parameter method was used to measure the wideband voltage transfer characteristics of CVT. Third, a voltage reconstruction method was proposed to improve the measurement accuracy and expand the frequency range of synchronous phasor measurement. Fourth, this method was applied to harmonic state estimation, and the performance of harmonic state estimation before and after voltage reconstruction was quantitatively compared. Results showed that the proposed method can remarkably improve the accuracy of harmonic state estimation. Finally, some factors, such as state observability, complex error disturbances, CVT structure, and harmonic order, influencing the performance of the proposed method were investigated. Results further demonstrated that the method has high accuracy, strong anti‐interference, and adaptability, and can provide basic information for harmonic localisation and traceability.