The invention discloses a preparation and refining method for citral. The method includes: 1) in an atmospheric oxygen-free environment, taking alcohol ether as a solvent and alkylsulfone as a cosolvent, adjusting the pH value by benzoic acid or phenylacetic acid, subjecting dehydrolinalool to catalytic rearrangement under catalysis of a molybdenum acetylacetonate catalyst so as to generate citral, with the dehydrolinalool, the solvent and the cosolvent being in a mass ratio of 1:(1-4):(0.2-0.8), and with the dosage of the catalyst accounting for 2-8% of that of dehydrolinalool, controlling the pH value at 3-5, the reaction time at 3-9h, and reaction temperature at 100-125DEG C; 2) subjecting a citral-containing reaction liquid to vacuum rectification to remove light components (including the cosolvent and unreacted dehydrolinalool), with a concentrated citral solution (mainly containing citral and the solvent) left at the tower bottom, and controlling the operation pressure at 0.02-0.08MPa, the tower bottom temperature at 40-80DEG C, and the reflux ratio at 4-10; and 3) carrying out vacuum rectification on the concentrated citral solution obtained at the tower bottom to obtain a high purity citral product, which has a citral purity up to 95.7%, and controlling the operation pressure at 0.008-0.06MPa, the tower bottom temperature at 40-80DEG C and the reflux ratio at 4-10. The method provided by the invention has very obvious positive effects, makes use of the good solubility of the molybdenum catalyst in the alcohol ether solvent, not only improves the citral yield, but also realizes recycling of the catalyst dissolved in the solvent. Complex processing steps in the prior art are avoided, and the process is simplified.