The invention discloses a method and a device for searching a virtual private network route, belonging to the network communications field. The method comprises searching the undermost leaf node corresponding to a key word in a pre-established index tree; acquiring a block corresponding to the leaf node in the pre-stored IP address area of the virtual private network and corresponding index information, wherein the block comprises one or more consecutive IP address area and corresponding index information; acquiring the IP address area to which the key word belongs in the block; and searching the routing list corresponding to the index information according to the indexing information corresponding to the IP address area. The invention realizes search of VPN route, and improves searching efficiency. The hierarchal searching structure using the index tree and route information can be conveniently realized by adopting FPGA and ASIC with the complexity of designing and implementation, and can flexibly support multiple VPNs .