The quantitative characteristics and the changes of tar, carbon monoxide and smoke nicotine contents in 275 standard samples of flue-cured cigarette from 2004 to 2018, including the changes every five years, the similarity among different years were studied by statistical methods including descriptive statistics, similar priority ratio, index summary method, and the suitability index of tar, carbon monoxide and smoke nicotine of cigarette was evaluated among different years. The results showed that the samples with the tar content per cigarette≤10 mg, accounted for only 18.54% of the total cigarette samples, the cigarette samples with carbon monoxide content ≤15 mg/cigarette accounted for 89.09% of the total samples, and the cigarette samples with smoke nicotine content ranging from 0.75 to 1.25 mg/cigarette accounted for 77.09%. The priority ratio between tar, carbon monoxide and smoke nicotine of cigarette samples in any year from 2011 to 2016 and the last year or the next year was relatively small, while the similarity was relatively large. Compared with cigarette samples of 2004-2008, the average content of tar, carbon monoxide and smoke nicotine were decreased by 21.82%, 23.89% and 16.09% during 2014-2018, respectively. The suitability index of main smoke chemical components of cigarette samples from 2004 to 2008 was relatively small.