An apparatus monitors the state of charge (SOC) of a flow battery system. The monitoring method include determining SOCs of at least two pairs of different monitoring positions. A pair of monitoring position may be located inside of an anode electrolyte storage tank (2) and inside of a cathode electrolyte storage tank (3), or inside of an anode electrolyte outlet pipeline (6) of a stack and inside of a cathode electrolyte outlet pipeline (7) of the stack, or inside of an anode electrolyte inlet pipeline (8) of the stack and inside of a cathode electrolyte inlet pipeline (9) of the stack. The SOCsum of the flow battery system is acquired according to the SOCs corresponding to different pair of monitoring positions, respectively. The method ensures acquiring an SOC monitoring result timely and accurately.