Progressive transmission using optimum bit-ordering of discrete cosine transform(DCT) coded image is proposed to reconstruct a better image in a few bits among all the coded bits at the receiver. It is to transmit the bit gradually to reduce the distrotion of the reconstructed image most by transmitting one more bit. To do this, the power transfer factor(PTF) which is the squared value of difference between the reconstruction level of embedded quantizer and another reconstruction level made by transmitting one more bit is defined. And then, the transmission order of bits is obtained by sorting the PTFs of the coded bits. As a results, the proposed method can reconstruct image having less distortion and better quality at the same bit rate than the conventional zig-zag scan.