The invention discloses a method for activating the surface of a PCB circuit to realize electroless nickel plating, which belongs to the field of printed circuit board manufacturing. The method comprises the following steps: 1) preparing 0.01-10 g / L soluble silver salt as a silver immersion solution; 2) preparing an activation solution according to the ratio of 1-100 g / L pH stabilizer and 10-50 g / L reducing agent, and the pH stabilizer is hydrogen One or more of sodium oxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonia water, sodium acetate, etc., and the reducing agent is one or more of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, glyoxylic acid, methanol, vitamin C, citric acid, etc.; 3) Pretreatment of PCB board; 4) After pretreatment, the PCB board is immersed in the immersion silver solution for 10-120s, cleaned, and then immersed in the activation solution for 10-80s; 5) The PCB board obtained in the previous step is chemically nickel plated. The invention avoids the use of precious metal palladium in the activation process, the activation solution has high stability and no seepage phenomenon, and effectively reduces the PCB production cost.