The invention discloses an electric energy meter sample appearance and PCB element detection method, and belongs to the technical field of electric energy meter image management and application. The method comprises the following steps: S1, establishing a standard element characteristic database, and obtaining front-surface, side-surface and reverse-surface to-be-detected images of a PCB; S2, performing detection preprocessing, establishing a background difference, and carrying out such processing as correcting, splicing and segmenting on detected images; S3, carrying out detection area analyzing on the processed images, and determining an element area or a solder point and circuit area, or a character and other area exists on the PCB; S4, carrying out image characteristic matching, in case of image matching success, performing element identification processing, in case of characteristic matching failure, determining whether image detection goes beyond a boundary, if not, performing local area search on patterns, and returning and continuously executing the element area detection step; and S5, generating a detection form. The electric energy meter detection method provided by the invention is novel in design, quite low in cost, high in accuracy, high in detection efficiency and good in detection effect, thereby facilitating popularization and application.