To provide a method of easily evaluating the hydrogen permeability for a material.

A specimen 1 used for the hydrogen permeability evaluation method comprises a transparent substrate 2, a rare earth metal membrane 3 formed on the transparent substrate 2, and an inspected membrane 4 formed on the rare earth metal membrane 3. In the hydrogen permeability evaluation method, the specimen 1 is exposed to a hydrogen atmosphere, and light is allowed to be incident on the rare earth meal membrane 3 to measure the reflectance of the light for each energy. By using the measured results, the energy at the end of a plasma is obtained, and the number of moles contained in the rare earth metal membrane 3 is obtained from the obtained energy. The hydrogen permeability of the inspected membrane 4 is evaluated by using the number of moles of the hydrogen.