The traveling wave resonance characteristics for a high-speed rotating thin cylindrical shell were studied under different boundary conditions based on transfer matrix method. Firstly, the vibration differential equations of a rotating thin cylindrical shell were set up based on Love’s shell theory, in which centrifugal forces, coriolis forces and inertial forces were involved. Secondly, depending on the state vector expression between sub-segments, the transfer matrix method was introduced to derive the overall transfer matrix of the structure. Finally, its resonance characteristics were solved by high-precise integration method under simply supported-simply supported, clamped-clamped and clamped-free boundary conditions. The example’s results show that transfer matrix method is suitable for solving the resonance characteristics for the high-speed rotating thin cylindrical shell, and the vibration modals are mainly presented as circumferential direction under three boundary conditions. There is only one resonance speed point when the resonance margin is less than 10% under the operating speed and first octave excitation, but the resonance speed points in other octave excitation are not within the safety margin range.