The invention relates to a catalyst for preparing chloroacetic acid from acetic acid and its preparation and application. The preparation method of the catalyst is as follows: (1) Mix phenol and formaldehyde aqueous solution, add metal powder and metal oxide, disperse and then heat the reaction (2) continue to add paraformaldehyde solid and / or hexamethylenetetramine in the reaction gained solution, stir and mix evenly, obtain the viscous liquid mixture, discharge while hot, granulate, obtain bar-shaped particle: ( 3) Dry the obtained strip-shaped particles, heat up and solidify, and then continue to heat up under the protection of an inert gas to obtain carbonized / graphitized particles; (4) finally elute the obtained carbonized / graphitized particles with aqueous nitric acid solution to obtain the target product. Compared with the prior art, the present invention effectively solves the problems of separation of the catalyst and the reaction solution, greatly improves the selectivity of the main product chloroacetic acid, and greatly reduces the production cost and labor intensity.