A method and apparatus with battery short circuit detection are included. In one general aspect, a processor-implemented method includes, based on battery data measured by a battery and a battery model of the battery, determining a detection parameter value used for detecting a short circuit of the battery and a variation factor value correlated with the detection parameter, using the variation factor to extract a reference value corresponding to the detection parameter value from a reference data set, and determining whether a short circuit of the battery has occurred based on a result of comparing the detection parameter value with the reference value.