A high pressure digestion ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) method for determining rare earth element contents in crude oil belongs to a chemical detection method for detecting 16 rare earth elements in crude oil, such as Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu, etc. In a sample high pressure digestion process, an ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry) method is first used to determine a wave spectrum intensity at 193.027nm of a carbonaceous element in a digestion solution, in order to determine a digestion degree; so that problems of apparatus loss and pollution caused by incomplete digestion and large result deviation caused by high matrix interference in a high pressure digestion method are solved. In an ICP-MS apparatus determination of the sample digestion solution, an on-line adding of internal standard solution and a collision reaction cell technology are employed to eliminate interferences and optimize apparatus working conditions. The method has a detection limit reaching 0.01[mu]g / kg-0.7[mu]g / kg and a recovery rate between 80.4%-105.2%, has advantages of low detection limit, rapidness and accuracy, etc., and can satisfy detection requirements of rare earth elements in crude oil.