The invention discloses a method for electroplating the surface of a circuit board. The method comprises the following steps: performing etching thickness reduction treatment, namely performing etching thickness reduction treatment on a copper foil layer of a non-line graph region on the surface of the circuit board; arranging an electroplated film, namely covering the non-line graph region and a non-electroplated area in a line graph region on the surface of the circuit board with the electroplated film; performing electroplating, namely performing electroplating on the electroplated area in the line graph region by taking the copper foil layer subjected to the etching thickness reduction treatment as an electroplating wire; removing the electroplated film and forming a line graph, namely removing the electroplated film, and removing the copper foil layer left by etching thickness reduction in the non-line graph region to form the line graph on the surface of the circuit board. According to the technical scheme, the shortcomings of gold plating permeation, incomplete etching, collapse of a gold-plated region, short-circuit risk or the like of a conventional gold plating process are overcome; the method can be used for machining a circuit board with the requirements of high-density line and high-accuracy dimension.