The transmission characteristics of vortex beams in layered media are of great significance in the fields of optical thin film technology, optical devices, and optical communications. We studied the reflection and transmission characteristics of higher-order vortex beams in layered media, and the theoretical derivation is carried out according to the plane wave angular spectrum expansion method and matrix transmission theory. The expressions of the electric field of the reflection and transmission of the vortex beam in the layered medium are obtained, and the influence of the medium on the light intensity and phase is analyzed. The results show that the reflected and transmitted light intensity distributions of the homogeneous medium basically remain circular. With the increase of topological charge, the attenuation of the reflected and transmitted light intensity of the uniform medium decreases and then increases, whereas the attenuation of the reflected and transmitted light intensity of the multilayer medium gradually increases. This indicates that the reflected and transmitted light intensities produced by vortex beam incident on different media are significantly different and that various angles of incidence cause the initial position of the phase center to change. The results lay a theoretical foundation for the transmission of vortex light in layered media.