Aiming at the problem of large number of units and nodes in the identification of damage in complex structures, a residual force vector method based on dynamic condensation is proposed. The method condenses by preserving the effective degrees of freedom of the structure and sums the absolute values of the residual force vectors of the previous structure to achieve damage localization. A simple finite element model of cantilever beam structure and space truss structure is established, and a variety of damage conditions are set to simulate and identify structural damage. The numerical results show that the proposed residual force vector based on dynamic condensation is used as the identification index, which has a high sensitivity to structural damage. Only the first few modal information of the structure is needed to quickly and accurately identify structural damage, which provides a new method for damage identification of large and complex structures.