The invention belongs to the technical field of detection and analysis, and in particular, relates to a method for determining the aluminum content in a composite swelling agent by a microwave digestion-graphite furnace atomic absorption method. The method includes two steps: carrying out sample pretreatment and microwave digestion, and determining the aluminum content in the composite swelling agent by the graphite furnace atomic absorption method. A sample is subjected to nitric acid microwave digestion, magnesium nitrate is added as a matrix modifier to eliminate interference, then the sample is taken and injected into a graphite furnace with a pyrolysis-coating graphite tube and is measured, and the aluminum content in the sample is calculated by a standard curve. The method adopting microwave digestion as the pre-treatment method, the use time is less, perchloric acid is not added during digestion, magnesium nitrate is added as the matrix modifier after digestion, the interference caused by measurement is avoided, the measuring sensitivity and precision are improved, and the accuracy of the detection is ensured; through the pyrolysis coating, the graphite tube not only can reduce the interference of a matrix and other elements and improve the measurement sensitivity, but also enables the service life of the graphite tube to be prolonged and reduces the cost.