The invention relates to method for catalyzing and degrading phenolic wastewater through microwaves. The method includes (1) preparing microwave catalysts, namely transition metallic oxide is loaded on activated carbon, (2) forming solid and liquid mixture, namely a certain amount of the microwave catalysts prepared in the step (1) is added in phenolic wastewater, (3) and carrying out microwave irradiation, namely the solid and liquid mixture is subjected to a microwave catalytic oxidation reaction to degrade phenolic organic matters under the microwave irradiation. According to the method, degradation efficiency is greatly reduced, processing time is greatly shortened, operation is simple and practical, investment and operation cost is low, occupation area is small, degradation is complete, concentration range of the degradable organic wastewater is wide, scale processing can be carried out in a continuous mode, industrialized production is easy to achieve, secondary pollution does not exist, and the method is suitable for processing organic wastewater in printing and dyeing industry, papermaking industry, chemical industry, pharmacy industry and the like.