The invention relates to a low-ash polyacrylonitrile-based fiber, a polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber and a preparation method thereof. The invention adopts the technical scheme that the preparation method of the low-ash polyacrylonitrile-based fiber comprises the following steps of oiling a fiber to be oiled to obtain an oiled fiber, wherein the swelling capacity of the fiber to be oiled is less than or equal to 80 percent, an oil agent used for oiling is prepared from crude oil and water, the concentration of the oil agent is smaller than or equal to 5 percent, a pH value of the crude oil is alkaline, the surface tension is smaller than or equal to 35 mN/m, the particle size is 200 to 400 nm, the antioxidant residue mass fraction in the air atmosphere is smaller than or equal to 10 percent, and the heat-resistant residue mass fraction in the nitrogen atmosphere is smaller than or equal to 10 percent; and carrying out drying densification treatment, steam drafting treatment and relaxation heat setting treatment on the oiled fiber to obtain the polyacrylonitrile-based fiber. According to the low-ash polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber, the ash content is less than or equal to 0.2 percent. According to the low-ash polyacrylonitrile-based fiber, the polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber and the preparation method thereof provided by the invention, the ash content of the polyacrylonitrile-based fiber and the polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber is mainly reduced, and broken filaments, fractured filaments, sticky filaments and doubled filaments are avoided.