Due to large-scale unloading, excavation above the tunnels may cause soil resilience and the deforma- tion to the metro tunnels, which threaten the operation greatly. How to reduce the influence of excavation, and decrease the vertical deformation of tunnels is very important. In this study, a 3-D model for channel excavation was established in ABAQUS. The influence of the excavation sequence on the vertical deformation of tunnels was analyzed in details. The results show that it is a reasonable excavation sequence to excavate the soils above shallow tunnels and the tunnels with little spacing first. The symmetry of excavation area should be paid atten- tion to. Moreover, the excavation sequence is given as references for similar projects.