Jade (nephrite) is an admired and salient feature of Chinese culture. The identification of the origin of nephrite in objects is important for archaeology, conservation and appraisal. Currently, many of the techniques used for the nephrite mineral analysis cannot be used for the cultural relics because most of them are destructive, lack quantitative accuracy and utilize complicated data analysis. In this paper, near-infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics were used for identification of nephrite from Hetian China, Qinghai China, Russia and Korea. Experiments show that this method can identify nephrite from the four origins quickly, accurately and nondestructively. This work provides a new feasible approach for identifying the origins of jade relics.