The work aims to prepare the short carbon fiber silver layer with good uniformity and binding force. The sil-ver-coated short carbon fibers were prepared by plating methods with glucose as reducing agent. The effects of NaOH and NiSO4 concentrations on the microstructure and properties of the silver-plated layers were studied. X-ray diffraction method and scanning electron microscopy were used to analyze the microstructure, morphology and composition of the electroless plated silver layers. The density and conductivity of silver-plated fibers were tested. The hot and cold cycling test method was employed to evaluate the bonding strength between the silver-plated layers and the short carbon fibers. Increasing NaOH concentrations led to the increase of the silver-ammonium complex ions, and thus accelerated the reaction rate. Proper NaOH concentration was beneficial to obtaining high-quality silver-plated layer. However, the leakage plating phenomena and coating unevenness occurred under both low and high concentrations of NaOH, which reduced the performance of silver-plated carbon fiber. The Ni2+ ions in NiSO4 additives could be adsorbed on the surface of the carbon fibers prior to other particles. This could improve the nucleation rates during silver depositions. However, the high concentrations of NiSO4 additives depressed the reaction rate of silver depositions. When NaOH concentration is 7 g/L, uniform silver-plated layer with good crystallinity, large density and better conductivity can be obtained. When 5×10-5 mol/L NiSO4 is selected, the smooth, uniform and flat silver-plated layer with the highest density and the best conductivity can be produced.