In order to meet the requirements of fast drilling and reservoir protection in salt layer at high temperature, the anti-high temperature and saturated salt water based clay-free drilling fluid was developed by selecting and compounding the viscosifiers, cross linkers, filtrate reducers, lubricants and anti-collapse inhibitors. The formula of drilling fluid was: saturated salt water, 0.2% Na₂CO₂, 1.2% SSDP, 0.4% DDL, 0.4% PAM, 0.3% Na₂B₄O₇, 3% SL-Ⅱ, 3% ultrafine CaCO₃, 1% HL-8 and 2% AP-1. The laboratory evaluation results showed that the temperature resistance of the clay-free drilling fluid reached to 170℃, and the density was 1.22 g/cm3. It had good resistance to unconsolidated rock and the capacity was 10%. The lubrication coefficient was 0.0388, which was close to that of oil-based drilling fluid. The shale recovery was as high as 96.84% in the drilling fluid. The expansion rate of clay in clay-free drilling fluid was lower than that in fresh water, which indicated good anti-collapse performance. The permeability recovery rate of core was more than 90%，which indicated good reservoir protection effect.