Objective To evaluate the risk of bias and reporting quality of animal experimental studies on the use of acupuncture for hypertension, and analyze the deficiencies in experimental design, implementation, and reporting, to reduce the risk of bias and improve the reporting quality of animal studies. Methods We searched the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Chinese Science and Technology Periodical, Chinese Biomedical Literature, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase and The Cochrane Library databases from inception to October 8, 2022. Two researchers independently screened experimental studies related to acupuncture interventions in hypertensive animals according to the eligibility criteria. The SYRCLE’s tool and the ARRIVE guidelines 2. 0 were used to evaluate the risk of bias and reporting quality of the included studies. The data were extracted using Excel 2019 and a descriptive analysis was conducted. Results A total of 79 animal experiments on the use of acupuncture for hypertension were included, including 17 and 21 published in Chinese core/ Chinese Science Citation Database-indexed journals and Science Citation Index journals, respectively. The result of SYRCLE’s tool analysis showed that five of the 10 items were evaluated well, while the rest had an unclear or high risk of bias. Of the 79 included articles, 19 had a low risk of bias, while the remaining studies had some risk of bias. The result of the ARRIVE guidelines 2. 0 indicated that 19 of the 38 sub-items were well reported, while the rest were poorly reported. The reporting quality was good for 51 articles but the remaining studies were inadequately reported. Conclusions The risk of bias in animal experiments of acupuncture intervention for hypertension is currently high and the reporting quality is generally low. The inadequate description of some important items affected the reproducibility of the experiments and the translation of the result. SYRCLE’s tool and ARRIVE guidelines 2. 0 should be referred to during the experimental design and reporting of studies, thus improving the standardization and reporting quality of animal studies of acupuncture for hypertension.