The invention relates to the technical field of high polymer materials, in particular to water-based UV resin and a preparation method thereof. The preparation method comprises the following steps: (1) adding metered diisocyanate into a reactor, dropwise adding dehydrated polyol, and reacting for 1-3 hours to obtain a product A; (2) in another reactor, under the protection of nitrogen, adding a raw material ethanolamine, then adding a catalyst, and raising the temperature of the system to 60-80 DEG C; dropwise adding a reaction monomer, and reacting for 3-8 hours to obtain a product B; and (3)adding the product B into the reactor under the protection of nitrogen, heating the system to 60-80 DEG C, dropwise adding the product A, reacting for 1-3 hours, and discharging to obtain the water-based UV resin. The obtained water-based UV resin has high solid content and excellent water resistance and solvent resistance, and does not use a low-molecular-weight reactive diluent, so that the contradiction that high hardness and high flexibility of light-cured resin cannot be considered at the same time is overcome, and the water-based UV resin has excellent steel wool scraping resistance.