Summary Tyramine has been considered a biological hazard for foods and beverages. In this study, an ultra‐high pressure liquid chromatography (UPLC) with benzylamine as an internal standard in dansyl chloride pre‐column derivatisation was developed to determine tyramine in various foods. Different from other tyramine determination methods usually without an internal standard in the pre‐column derivatisation, benzylamine which chemical structure is similar to tyramine was selected as an internal standard. The limits of detection and quantification of this method were 0.05 and 0.25 mg L−1, respectively, while the relative standard deviations of repeatability and reproducibility were 2.1% and 3.1%, respectively. The sensitivity and reliability of this method were also evaluated by determining tyramine in common liquid, pasty and solid foods. The recoveries of tyramine in these foods were between 87.3% and 96.8% by using this method. Overall, it is a fast, inexpensive, reliable and sensitive method to measure tyramine in different food products.