The invention provides a sizing agent for paper, which is mainly prepared by mixing glue, polyvinyl alcohol, cationic styrene acrylate, aluminum sulfate and fatty acid ester, wherein the glue is prepared by the following steps: adding a biological enzyme into a 20-25 wt% starch water solution, carrying out enzyme digestion at 80-85 DEG C for 10-20 minutes, heating to 130-140 DEG C, and boiling for 0.5-1 minute to inactivate the enzyme; and the polyvinyl alcohol accounts for 1-2 wt% of the glue, the cationic styrene acrylate accounts for 2-4 wt% of the glue, the aluminum sulfate accounts for 2-4 wt% of the glue, and the fatty acid ester accounts for 0.1-0.3 wt% of the glue. The sizing agent is simple in composition and easy to prepare; and after being applied to paper, the sizing agent can obviously improve the paper quality, enhance the breaking resistance, tear resistance and moisture absorption resistance of the paper, so that the paper has favorable smoothness and strong adaptability to surface printing.