Adaptive Volterra filters (AVFs) are usually used to identify nonlinear systems, such as loudspeaker systems, and ordinary adaptive algorithms can be used to update the filter coefficients of AVFs. However, AVFs require huge computational complexity even if the order of the AVF is constrained to the second order. Improving calculation efficiency is therefore an important issue for the real-time implementation of AVFs. In this paper, we propose a novel sub-band AVF with high calculation efficiency for second-order AVFs. The proposed sub-band AVF consists of four parts: input signal transformation for a single sub-band AVF, tap length determination to improve calculation efficiency, switching the number of sub-bands while maintaining the estimation accuracy, and an automatic search for an appropriate number of sub-bands. The proposed sub-band AVF can improve calculation efficiency for which the dominant nonlinear components are concentrated in any frequency band, such as loudspeakers. A simulation result demonstrates that the proposed sub-band AVF can realize higher estimation accuracy than conventional efficient AVFs.