Abstract: The variation characteristics of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) at low latitude station, Kunming ( 24.7 °N, 102.9 °E ) from 2016 to 219 during the descending phase of solar activity and its comparison with the output by the latest version of the International Reference Ionosphere ( IRI-2020 ) are studied. The results show that the TEC has obvious semi-annual anomalies, with high value in spring and autumn while low value in summer and winter. The diurnal variation of daytime high value and nighttime low value is prominent, and the daily peak TEC appears between 6.5-8UT (about 13-15 LT ). The magnitude of annually average TEC decreases as the solar activity weakens, with the value of 48, 33, 27 and 24 TECu during 2016-2019, respectively. There is a significant correlation between peak TEC and F10.7 with a correlation coefficient of 0.86, and a weak correlation with the Ap index. The IRI-2020 can simulate well the seasonal variation of TEC at Kunming. However, there is a big difference between the output value and the observed result, which is overestimated in the daytime and underestimated in the nighttime. The root mean square deviation between model prediction and true value is mostly between 2-15 TECu, and the relative deviation percentage is mainly between -85%~50%. The results show that the prediction accuracy of IRI-2020 still needs to be improved.