Abstract: To study the influence of roof cutting and pressure relief on the surrounding rock control effect of gob-side entry retaining, numerical simulation was carried out by UDEC software, and the stress and deformation characteristics law of roadway surrounding rock under two states of whether the lateral roof collapsed or not were analyzed. The results show that compared with the state of the direct roof hanging, the vertical stress concentration coefficient of the coal seam on the coal side and the supporting wall beside the roadway are reduced by 0.19 and 0.49 respectively when the direct roof collapses. Under the condition of direct roof caving, the roof settlement, floor heave, coal wall internal displacement and wall internal displacement of roadway are reduced by 73%, 60%, 27% and 75% of that of direct roof hanging respectively. The direct roof hanging is an important reason for the large deformation of surrounding rock in gob-side entry. Cutting the roof will make the direct roof above the goaf collapse effectively, and the weight of overlying strata can not effectively transfer to the surrounding rock, and the collapsed rock stratum will play a certain supporting role on the roof, and also help to reduce the surrounding rock pressure.