Permethrin is a common synthetic chemical, widely used as an insecticide, acaricide, and insect repellent. it belongs to the family of synthetic chemicals called pyrethroids and functions as a neurotoxin. the present work involves the development and validation of uv - spectrophotometric and rp-hplc methods for the estimation of permethrin in cream formulation. accurate, precise and rapid uv spectrophotometric methods namely zero order, first order derivative and area under curve, were developed and validated for the estimation of permethrin in cream formulation. the wavelengths selected for quantitation was 272nm, 284nm and 267-277nm for zero order, first order and auc methodrespectively. the linearity of developed methods was found in the range of 40- 140µg/ml (r2 =0.999). the results of analysis were also validated statistically. a simple, specific and precise reverse phase high performance thin layer chromatography (rp - hplc) method has been developed and validated for the estimation of permethrin in cream formulation using bds premium c18 (250mm x 4.6 mm x 5µm) as column, methanol: water (90:10 v/v) as mobile phase,flow rate of 1.5 ml/min and detection was carried out at 235nm. the retention time of permethrin was 5 minute. the linearity range was found to be 40-140μg/. the co-relation coefficient was found to be 0.999. the developed methods were simple, economicand specific and can be used for estimation of permethrin in cream formulation for routine analysis.