An infrared image quality evaluation method based on visual perception characteristics is proposed according to infrared imaging features. The visual perception characteristics and structural information of infrared image are utilized to describe the distortion degree of infrared images, and edge features and contrast features of infrared images are extracted. Then the features were fused differently by visual saliency to achieve quality evaluation of distorted infrared images. Experimental results show this method can effectively evaluate distorted infrared images. Compared to traditional methods, the proposed method is in better consistency with human subjective perception.