In the user-congested high-frequency band, radio frequency interference (RFI) is a dominant factor that degrades the detection performance of high-frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR). Up to now, various RFI suppression algorithms have been proposed while they are usually inapplicable to the compact HFSWR because of the minimal array aperture. Therefore, this letter proposes a novel RFI mitigation scheme for compact HFSWR, even for single antenna. The scheme utilized the robust principal component analysis to separate RFI and target, based on the time-frequency distribution characteristics of the RFI. The effectiveness of this scheme is demonstrated by the measured data, which can effectively suppress RFI without losing target signal.