The invention discloses a preparation method of 3,6-dichloro-2-hydroxybenzoic acid, which sequentially comprises the following steps: 1) salifying 2,5-dichlorophenol; 2) carboxylation: transferring the 2,5-dichlorophenate solution into a high-pressure reaction kettle, adding a cocatalyst, and introducing CO2 to carry out high-pressure carboxylation reaction to obtain the reaction product containing 3,6-dichloro-2-hydroxybenzoate, wherein the cocatalyst is composed of potassium carbonate and activated carbon; 3) refinement: after cooling the reaction product containing 3,6-dichloro-2-hydroxybenzoate obtained in the step 2) to room temperature, adding an alkali solution, regulating the pH value to 11-13, uniformly stirring, filtering to recover activated carbon, stratifying the filtrate, and taking the water phase; and adding an acid solution into the water phase, regulating the pH value to 1-3, carrying out vapor distillation to recover the 2,5-dichlorophenol, cooling to crystallize, carrying out vacuum filtration, and drying to obtain the 3,6-dichloro-2-hydroxybenzoic acid.