Oral cancer is not only a serious threat to human health and life but also its incidence rate has been increasing year by year. Oral cancer animal model is indispensable for the research of clinical diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer. Therefore, it is of great importance to establish an animal model of disease which is similar to the natural occurrence of human oral cancer and to study its pathogenesis, prevention and treatment. At present, animal models of oral cancer mainly include spontaneous animal model, induced animal model and genetically modified animal model. The research progress, current problems and the future development perspectives of animal models of oral cancer in recent years are summarized in this paper.