Disclosed is a small-diameter polarization maintaining optical fiber, which relates to the field of special optical fibers. The small-diameter polarization maintaining optical fiber comprises a quartz optical fiber (5); the periphery thereof is provided with an inner coating (6) and an outer coating (8); the interior of the quartz optical fiber (5) is provided with an optical fiber core layer (1) and a quartz cladding (2); two stress zones (4) are arranged between the optical fiber core layer (1) and the quartz cladding (2); a buffer coating (7) is arranged between the inner coating (6) and the outer coating (8); the periphery of each stress zone (4) is provided with a buffer layer (3) which is concentric with the stress zone (4); when a working wavelength of a small-diameter polarization maintaining optical fiber is 1310 nm, the attenuation thereof reaches less than 0.5 dB/km, and the crosstalk reaches -35 dB/km; and when the working wavelength of the small-diameter polarization maintaining optical fiber is 1550 nm, the attenuation thereof reaches less than 0.4 dB/km, and the crosstalk reaches -30 dB/km. The optical fiber not only has excellent stability characteristics of attenuation and crosstalk, but also has the excellent stability characteristic of long-term operation, and can provide a better optical fiber ring for research on a high-precision optical fiber gyroscope, thereby laying the foundation for the development directions of miniaturization and high precision of the optical fiber gyroscope.