The liquid radial spreading coefficient of packings for absorption and rectification columns is necessary to determine the packing height which ensures uniform liquid distribution over the column cross section. The existing calculation methods can be used theoretically only when this coefficient is independent of the liquid superficial velocity, which is often not the case. A tracer method free from this limitation is developed and tested. The spreading coefficients for different sizes of modern, highly effective packings (Raschig Super-Ring, Ralu-Flow, and impulse metal tower packing) are determined. Practically, in the range of the experimental error, the spreading coefficients of these packings are independent of the liquid superficial velocity. For such packings the tracer method is expected to give the same results as the existing single jet method. Some differences between the results of these two methods are discussed and an explanation is proposed.