In accordance with the problem that the existing fault phase identification methods can’t identify all fault types quickly and reliably, the change rate of fundamental current phasor based method is suggested. When fault occurs, the change rate of fundamental current phasor of faulty phase, which is affected by the decaying DC component and the fundamental frequency fault component, increases rapidly, and that of non-faulty phase is small. If grouding fault occurs, the change rate of fundamental current phasor of zero sequence current is affected by the decaying DC component and the fundamental frequency fault component and increases rapidly; otherwise its value is near zero. Then, the faulted phases can be identified quickly and reliably in according to the characteristics of the change rate of fundamental current phasor under various conditions. The simulation data from PSCAD/EMTDC is applied to verify and test the proposed algorithm, the simulation results show that the algorithm which has high reliability can identify any types and phases of faults in a quarter cycle.