Aiming at the problem of the inaccurate fault location in high-permeability active distribution network, a novel method of fault location for active distribution network based on improved variational mode decomposition (IVMD) and S-transform is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the judgment method of instantaneous frequency is adopted to determine the value of decomposition layers k. Meanwhile the algorithm of variational mode decomposition (VMD) is utilized to decompose the fault signal of traveling wave. Then, the kurtosis criterion is employed to select the appropriate intrisic mode functions (IMFS) for S-transform in order to obtain the S-matrix with higher resolution. The high-frequency components in the matrix are extracted to determine the arrival time for the head of the fault traveling wave. Finally, the fault distance can be calculated by the special distance formula without considering the velocity of the traveling wave. The simulations show that the proposed method can accurately measure the fault distance for the transmission lines in high permeability active distribution network, and the measurement error is limited within 200m, which verifies the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.INDEX TERMS Active distribution network, fault location, fault traveling wave, improved variational mode decomposition (IVMD), S-transform.