Abstract: A lossless remote sensing image compression method based on subblock interchange (SBI) was presented. Remote sensing image was decompressed into frequency domain image by wavelet transform and the bit planes in frequency domain image were permuted by SBI transform seperately. The resulting data was compressed by arithmetic encoder. In the method, the column-based scan mode was improved, wavelet coefficients were resorted in magnitude order, MTF (move to front) code, which was often used in text compression method, was cancelled. The method achieves better compression performance and lower complexity. At the same time the method achieves desired feature of PSNR scalability and resolution scalability.