In this paper, fractional complex transform with new iterative method (NIM) is used to obtain approximate solutions for the nonlinear time fractional Kawahara and modified Kawahara equations based on He's fractional derivative. Fractional complex transform is proposed to convert time fractional Kawahara and modified Kawahara equations to the nonlinear ordinary differential equations and then NIM is applied to the new obtained equations. The obtained approximate solutions are compared with the exact solutions to verify the applicability, efficiency and accuracy of the method.