To provide a pickling method by which pickling efficiency is enhanced without enlarging pickling equipment and even the steel strip difficult to descale is pickled in a shorter time.

A steel strip 1 is continuously dipped in an acid soln. 3 in a pickling tank 2, a current is applied in the longitudinal direction of the strip, a magnetic field is applied in the width direction of the strip to generate an alternating electromagnetic force in the vertical direction of the strip, hence exciting a vibration having 1-10 mm amplitude in the strip, and the strip is pickled. Further, it is preferable that the frequency of the vibration lies in a range of 400 Hz to 50 kHz.