Laser transmission welding involves joining of transmitting and absorbing thermoplastic polymer components. Absorption is normally controlled by addition of small amounts of carbon black (CB). In thermal modelling of the process, the laser-light absorption coefficient is an important parameter that controls the rate and distribution of heat generation in the absorbing component. This paper introduces a novel experimental method to conveniently and accurately measure the absorption coefficient in the absorbing component. In this method, a laser beam scans rapidly over the surface of the CB-filled polymer. The laser power resulting in the onset of surface melting can be obtained and used to calculate the absorption coefficient based on an analytical model presented in this paper. To validate the proposed method, the experimental results were compared with those obtained by the spectrophotometer and the power-meter methods using unreinforced and glass-fiber reinforced nylon 6. The results indicate that there is a linear relationship between the absorption coefficient and carbon black level for these two polymers. The influence of glass fibers and laser scan speed on the measurement are also discussed.