In this study, we investigated a simple, sensitive and reliable liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection method for the determination of memantine hydrochloride in rat plasma which was based on derivatization with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl). For the first time, FMOC-Cl was introduced into derivatization of memantine hydrochloride in rat plasma. The amino groups of memantine hydrochloride and amantadine hydrochloride (internal standard) were trapped with FMOC-Cl to form memantine hydrochloride-FMOC-Cl and amantadine hydrochloride-FMOC-Cl compositions, which can be very compatible for LC-FLD. Precipitation of plasma proteins by acetonitrile was followed by vortex mixing and centrifugation. Chromatographic separation was performed on a C(18) column (DIAMONSIL 150 × 4.6 mm, id 5 μm) with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and water at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The retention times of memantine hydrochloride-FMOC-Cl and amantadine hydrochloride-FMOC-Cl compositions were 23.69 and 40.27 min, respectively. Optimal conditions for the derivatization of memantine hydrochloride were also described. The limit of quantification (LOQ) was 25 ng/mL for memantine hydrochloride in plasma, the linear range was 0.025-5.0 μg/mL in plasma with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.9999. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of intra-day and inter-day assays were 4.46-12.19 and 5.23-11.50%, respectively. The validated method was successfully applied to the determination of memantine hydrochloride in rat plasma samples.