background: Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a pathogen with the capability of cross-species transmission. It has crossed the species barrier to infect many other species, and its host range is expanding. The reverse genetic platform, a useful tool for scientific research, allows the generation of recombinant viruses from genomic cDNA clones in vitro. methods: To improve the reverse genetic system of CDV, a plasmid containing three independent expression cassettes was constructed for co-expression of the N, P, and L genes and then transfected with a full-length cDNA clone of CDV into Vero cells. results: The results indicated that the established rescue system has the advantages of being more convenient, easy to control the transfection ratio, and high rescue efficiency compared with the conventional reverse genetics system. conclusions: This method not only reduces the number of transfection plasmids, but also improves the rescue efficiency of CDV, which could provide a reference for the recovery of other morbilliviruses.