Abstract: Icing on the surface of wind turbine blades can reduce the turbine’s aerodynamic characteristics and power generation efficiency. In this paper, the effect of the number of blades on the icing distribution on the blade surface of a vertical axis wind turbine is studied. A natural low temperature icing wind tunnel experiment system was built to test the icing distribution of three groups of blades (1, 2, 4) under three tip speed ratios (0.2, 0.6, 1.0). The results show that the number of blades has a significant effect on the distribution of icing on the blade surface of the vertical axis wind turbine under different tip speed ratios, and the icing distribution on the inner and outer surfaces of the blade is asymmetric. With the increase of the number of blades, the thickness of the ice layer on the surface of the blades increases first and then decreases. In the 10% area at the leading edge of the chord, the increase of the thickness of the ice layer is significantly greater than that at other parts of the blade. With the increase of the tip speed ratio, the thickness of the ice layer on the leading edge of the blade is significantly larger than that at other parts of the blade, and the thickness difference of the ice layer between the inner and outer surface on the leading edge of the blade increases gradually. The research results can provide a reference for the anti-icing and de-icing technology of wind turbine blades.