Objective To investigate the effect of continuous intravenous lidocaine on kidney injury in rats with early sepsis. Methods A total of 160 SPF male SD rats were randomly divided into 4 groups (30 rats in each group): sham operation group (group S), cecal ligation and perforation group (group CLP), lidocaine group (group L) and normal saline group (group N). The rats in group S were sutured immediately after opening the abdominal cavity, and the sepsis model was established by cecal ligation and perforation (CLP) method in the remaining groups. Immediately after the completion of modeling, group L was given lidocaine loading of 10 mg/kg, followed by continuous tail vein pumping lidocaine at a dose of 10 mg·kg-1·h-1 for 3 hours, and group N was replaced with the same volume of normal saline. Five rats were randomly selected at 6 time points after anesthesia (T0), 2 h (T1), 4 h (T2), 8 h (T3), 20 h (T4) and 24 h (T5) after laparotomy only, and serum interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), SCr, BUN, cystatin C (Cys-C) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipid carrier protein were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). (NGAL) concentration, hematoxylin–eosin (HE) staining was used to observe the pathological changes of kidney tissue, and the urine output of each group was collected and measured at 8h and 24h. Another 40 rats were grouped and processed as above, and the survival of 4 groups of rats was observed for 72 hours. Results The survival rate was 100% in group S, 10% in group CLP, 60% in group L, and 40% in group N. Compared with the group S, the serum IL-6 and TNF-α in the groups CLP, L and N increased, while those in the group L decreased compared with the CLP, and there was no statistically significant difference between the group N and the group CLP. Compared with the group S, the urine output of the group CLP decreased, and the urine output of the groups L and N increased. Compared with group S, the serum concentrations of SCr, BUN, Cys-C and NGAL in group CLP, groups L and N were increased at T1-5 (P0.05), compared with the group CLP, the serum concentrations of SCr, BUN, Cys-C and NGAL at T1-5 in group L decreased (P0.05), the serum SCr concentrations at T1-2 and T5 in group N decreased (P0.05), the serum BUN concentrations at T1 and T4-5 in group N decreased (P0.05), and the serum concentrations of Cys-C at time T1 and T3-5 decreased in group N (P0.05), the serum NGAL concentrations at T1 and T4-5 in group N decreased (P0.05), and compared with group N, serum SCr concentrations at T2-3, serum BUN concentrations at T1-3, serum Cys-C and NGAL concentrations at T1-5 were decreased in group L (P0.05). Conclusion Continuous intravenous injection of lidocaine can increase fluid volume, reduce the levels of IL-6 and TNF-α, alleviate kidney injury in the early stage of sepsis, and inhibit the increase of serum SCr, BUN, Cys-C and NGAL concentrations in rats with early sepsis.