This paper proposed an optimization algorithm for exit choice for the evacuation.The algorithm aims at minimizing the overall evacuation time from the global respective.The basic concept of the algorithm is balancing the number of pedestrians selecting each exit to make all the evacuees leave the building simultaneously as far as possible.Taking a theater with six exits as an example,the FDS+EVAC software is used to simulate the evacuation process.The results of pedestrians; exit choice and the evacuation time with and without optimization are compared and analyzed.It shows that adopting the optimized choice strategy can greatly improves the utilization of the exits during the evacuation,and all of the evacuees leave the building almost simultaneously.