Abstract Accurate jet charge identification is essential for precise electroweak and flavor measurements at the high-energy frontier. We propose a novel method called the Leading Particle Jet Charge method (LPJC) to determine the jet charge based on information of the leading charged particle. Tested on Z → b b ¯ $$ b\overline{b} $$ and Z → c c ¯ $$ c\overline{c} $$ samples at center-of-mass energy of 91.2 GeV, the LPJC achieves an effective tagging power ϵ eff of 20%/9% for c/b jet, respectively. In combination with the Weighted Jet Charge method (WJC), we develop a Heavy Flavor Jet Charge method (HFJC), which achieves an effective tagging power ϵ eff of 39%/20% for c/b jet, respectively. This paper also discusses the dependencies between jet charge identification performance and the fragmentation process of heavy flavor jets, as well as critical detector performances.