Abstract Tower impulse grounding resistance is important for judging the lightning protection performance of transmission lines. Therefore, it is significant to accurately measure the tower impulse grounding resistance. Existing measurement methods mainly contain the real‐type test method and the impulse coefficient method. However, the real‐type test method requires heavy and complex excitation and measuring equipment, which is difficult to be used in a practical environment. The impulse coefficient method adopts the empirical equations, which could have large measurement errors in different environments. To solve the above problems, this paper studies a novel impulse grounding resistance measurement method (IGRMM) based on multiple frequency impedance. Spectrum characteristics of typical lightning currents and the calculation method of impulse grounding resistance of grounding electrodes are studied, the IGRMM is proposed. Finally, a case study and on‐site tests are carried out. The results show that the proposed IGRMM can accurately obtain the impulse grounding resistance by measuring grounding impedance at a few frequency points, which helps accurate and convenient evaluation of impulse grounding performance in practical environments and lightning protection performance of the power transmission systems.