For the study of the buckling behavior of the variable-angle-laminated composite plate under compression loading, three buckling analysis methods are carried out to model the variable-angle-laminated composite plate with holes: linear buckling analysis, linear buckling analysis with residual thermal stresses and non-linear buckling analysis with initial imperfections. Then experiments are conducted to verify the rationality of the three methods. It is shown that linear buckling analysis method with residual thermal stresses agrees well with the experimental results, which only differs by 0.63%. With this method, the residual thermal stress distribution characteristics and stress level are discussed to find the stress distribution nephogram and the stress distribution law. And then the influence of residual thermal stress on the buckling behavior of the variable-angle-laminated composite plate is calculated. The results show that the residual thermal stress has little influence on the buckling behavior of the straight fiber laminate only with a 3.57% increase, while the buckling behavior of the variable-angle-laminated composite plate improves significantly, which increases up to 23.40%. It is shown that curvilinear fiber can change the distribution of residual thermal stress, which reduces the combined resultant stress near the center of the composite plate with holes, so the critical buckling load of the laminate with hole increases.