Influence of three different preparation methods, i.e. impregnation, coprecipitation, and inverse coprecipitation, on the preferential oxidation of CO in excess hydrogen (PROX) over CuO-CeO2 catalysts has been investigated and CuO-CeO2 catalysts are characterized using BET, XPS, XRD, UV Raman, and TPR techniques. The results show that the catalysts prepared by coprecipitation have smaller particle sizes, well-dispersed CuOx species, more oxygen vacancies, and are more active in the PROX than those prepared by the other methods. However, the inverse coprecipitation depresses the catalytic performance of CuO-CeO2 catalysts and causes the growth of CuO-CeO2 because of different pH value in the precipitation process.