A new structural dynamic model for the free vibration characteristic analysis of rotating pretwisted functionally graded (FG) sandwich blades is developed. The sandwich blade is made up of two functionally graded skins and a homogeneous material core. The thick shell theory is applied to derive the basic equations of motion of the rotating FG sandwich blade by considering the effects of centrifugal and Coriolis forces. The mode shapes are expanded in terms of two-dimensional algebraic polynomials in the Rayleigh–Ritz method, and the static and dynamic natural frequencies of the blade are obtained. The convergence analysis is studied, and the accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing with the literature results and ANSYS data. The effects of frequency parameters such as the twist angle, the thickness ratio, the aspect ratio, the layer thickness ratio, the scalar parameter of volume fraction, the stagger angle, and the rotation velocity on the vibration characteristics for pretwist FG sandwich blade are investigated in detail. In addition, the phenomena of frequency locus veering and mode shape exchanging occur in the static and dynamic states. Frequency locus veering is essentially caused by the coupling between different modes.