Laterite is a typically special soil with high water sensitivity, and soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) is an important refrence for studying engineering performance of laterite. Laterite usually shows obvious swell-shrink effects when moisture changes. Present SWCC tests lack consideration about this effect and therefore the results always contain errors. The pressure plate apparatus and filter paper method were applied in this research to measure matrix suctions corresponding to different soil water contents of typical laterite in Hunan. Besides, the characteristics of volume variation with water content was acquired based on shrinkage tests to obtain the shrinkage coefficient and derive the modified volume correction formulation. The SWCC was modified by involving the volume change effects. Finally, the V-G model was used to fit the modified SWCC. The relationship between the initial void ratio and model parameters was established, and the improved V-G model for laterite was established. The results showed that, volume change corresoponding to moisture change for laterite influenced SWCC very much. Under the same matrix suction, the volumetric water content and saturation degree of laterite after the modification were obviously higher than those before the modification, and the difference became more obvious with the increase of matrix suction. For the SWCC's V-G model with the volume change modification, model parameters were strongly affected by the initial void ratio, of which, there were power function relationships between void ratio and parameter a (representing air-entry value) or between void ratio and parameter n (representing void size distribution). Additionally, the initial void ratio had a linear relationship with parameter m (which represented residual water content) .