Abstract: The single-transmitting-dual-receiving polarimetric SAR system has only two receving channels, which induces lack of prior information forcalibration. Due to the polarization diversity of this kind of system (which operates on different dual and compact polarimetric modes), there has not a general algorithm currently. In this paper, a new general calibration algorithm is proposed for single-transmitting-dual-receiving polarimetric SAR system, which can be widely applied to diverse polarization modes. The transmitting and receiving distortion can be estimated using trihedral, 0 dihedraland 45 dihedral as ideal point targets without any assumption on the scene and system. The basic principle of this new algorithm is induced theoretically. The effect of calibrator error on the distortion estimation is analyzed by simulation. Point targetscalibration results and polarization signatures verify this algorithm.