A collision energy absorption apparatus for a rail vehicle, including a connection member, a base, and an energy-absorption splitting tube provided on the outer side in the radial direction of the connection member. The inner wall and outer wall of the energy-absorption splitting tube includes one or more pairs of slits having radial positions corresponding to each other. Each pair of slits includes an inner slit and an outer slit. Each slit is a non-closed linear slit. The slit has a width of 0.05-0.8 mm. The sum of the depths of each pair of slits is less than the wall thickness of the energy-absorption splitting tube.