The existence of holes can reduce the strength of composite material structure significantly. Based on the concept of stress field intensity method, a simplified engineering model for predicting the residual strength of notched composite laminates is proposed. A large amount of test data are adopted to evaluate the stress field intensity method and other representative characteristic distance methods. In summary, the stress field intensity method and the average stress criterion method have better prediction abilities than the point stress criterion and the damage zone criterion methods, and the stress field intensity method fits test results little better than the average stress criterion method.