Oxide fiber has good thermostability and oxidation resistance at high temperature, is one of the important candidates for the reinforcements of composites for aerospace field. The tensile property at high temperature is one of the critical properties of oxide fiber used in harsh environment, but the related research about domestic 550-grade fiber is rarely reported. Here the tensile property of domestic 550-grade continuous alumina fiber at high temperature and its room temperature tensile property after heat treatment were studied. Relationships between the tensile strength and the phase transition, the microstructures, as well as their internal mechanism were investegated. The results showed that the fiber multifilament and filaments had relatively high tensile strength with strength retention rate up to 1100 ℃. The poor thermostability of amorphous SiO₂ had obviously adverse effect on the tensile property of the fiber at temperature above 1200 ℃. Importantly, at the critical phase transition temperature (1300 ℃) mullite plase was formed, which could improve the fiber tensile strength at 1250-1400 ℃. This work demonstrated that the tensile strength of SIC550 fiber at 1100 ℃ was close to that of Nextel 720 and CeraFib by considering the effect of different gauge length.