With the repeated grounding of the PEN line, load fluctuation, and other factors, there is no available leakage protection for the low-voltage TN-C system, which is very dangerous when a leakage fault occurs. And TN-C grounding mode is still widely used, and the reformation is slow. The single-phase leakage fault and load fluctuation characteristics of the TN-C system are analyzed, and a leakage protection method for the TN-C system based on the amplitude ratio of characteristic currents is proposed. This method takes the amplitude of the residual current sudden change as the starting criterion, and constructs the action criterion according to the amplitude ratio of load current sudden change and residual current’s sudden change, so as to realize the discrimination of leakage fault and load fluctuation. The proposed method can overcome the influence of load fluctuation and other factors, suitable for TN-C systems with high sensitivity and reliability. The effectiveness of the protection is verified by simulation.