Laser cleaning has the advantages of environmental protection, precision, and high efficiency, and has good prospects for application in removing oxide films on the surface of aluminum alloy. This paper discusses the cleaning threshold and cleaning mechanism of aluminum alloy surface oxide film. A nano-second pulsed laser was used to remove a 5-μm-thick oxide film from the surface of 7A04 aluminumalloy, and the target surface temperature and cleaning depth were simulated. The effects of different laser energy densities on the surface morphology of the aluminum alloy were analyzed, and the plasma motion process was recorded using a high-speed camera. The temperature measurement results of the experiment are close to the simulation results. The results show that the laser cleaning of aluminum alloy oxide film is mainly based on the vaporization mechanism and the shock wave generated by the explosion.