The invention provides a detection method of polyacrylamide concentration in a tertiary oil recovery liquid. The method comprises: drawing a standard curve, preparing standard polyacrylamide solutions of different concentrations, shearing for at least 30 seconds under rotate speeds of 11000-22000 r/min, determining light absorption values of the solutions, drawing a standard curve, detecting to-be-detected samples, determining light absorption values of the to-be-detected samples, and determining the concentration of the polyacrylamide of the samples referring to the drawed standard curve, wherein a nephelometry or a starch-cadmium iodide method is used to determine the light absorption values of the solutions. According to the invention, the method can eliminate relatively large errors of polymer concentrations of the recovery liquid determined by the traditional nephelometry and the starch-cadmium iodide methods, thereby increasing a detection precision of the polymer concentrations of the recovery liquid.