As an advanced surface modification technology ,laser cladding technology has the advantages of small coating dilution rate ,good combination of cladding layer and substrate ,and fast cooling speed. At the same time of the rapid heating and rapid cooling process ,the coating and the substrate often produce high residual stress ,resulting in adverse effects such as deformation ,coating peeling and cracks. This paper first analyzes the generation mechanism of laser cladding residual stress ,and then summarizes the numerical simulation research of laser cladding residual stress ,including model establishment ,distribution of single-pass and multi-pass cladding residual stress ,and the influence of process parameters on residual stress ,and the result verification ,and introduced the residual stress control method ,finally summarized the deficiencies and development directions in the numerical simulation research of laser cladding residual stress.