The invention discloses a 1, 5-pentyl diisocyanate preparation method which includes the steps: (1) mixing 1, 5-pentane diamine transfer solution and extracting solvents, extracting 1, 5-pentane diamine and dewatering extracting solution to obtain mixed solution of the 1, 5-pentane diamine transfer solution and the extracting solvents; (2) adding catalysts and urea into the mixed solution of the 1, 5-pentane diamine transfer solution and the extracting solvents, supplementing an appropriate quantity of extracting solvents to form a reaction system, performing carbamic acid esterification on the 1, 5-pentane diamine and recycling excessive extracting solvents in the reaction system by reduced pressure distillation to obtain PDU; (3) mixing the PDU, heat carriers and the catalysts and performing thermal cracking reaction and separation to obtain the extracting solvents and PDI. According to the method, a large quantity of salts in the transfer solution can be removed by extracting solvent extraction, the extracting solvents can serve as raw materials for synthesizing the PDU, the PDI can be prepared by thermal cracking, and the extracting solvents serving as by-products can be recycled.