In this paper,the thermo-elastic-plastic finite element method is used to calculate the residual stress of butt welding of AH36 marine high-strength steel. The longitudinal and transverse residual stress distributions in the directions of two paths near the weld zone are obtained. The effects of different welding sequences on the welding residual stress and its release during the welding process are analyzed. The calculation results show that the welding residual stresses on the two paths are greatly affected by the welding sequence. The initial transverse and longitudinal welding residual stresses of working condition one and working condition four are small.After applying 50 times of tensile cycle load, the release rate of longitudinal and transverse residual stresses of working condition one is the largest and the stress value is the smallest.