A block in Changqing oilfield has high heterogeneity,and there are high?capacity channels, microfractures and high?permeability zones in its formations. During the implementation of natural gas flooding, the high risk of gas channeling must be considered. The traditional polymer microspheres are characterized by fast water absorption and expansion rate.It is easy to shear and crush its plugging strength is low. In view of these shortages,a polymer microsphere featuring delayed swelling was thus synthesized by introducing and activating a crosslinker and adopting inverse emulsion polymerization to address those defects. Its structure was characterized by a laser particle size analyzer and a polarizing microscope. Laboratory experiments were conducted to systematically evaluate the performance of the polymer microsphere featuring delayed swelling in temperature resistance,salt resistance,swelling,stability,and plugging during natural gas flooding.The results show that with a temperature resistance of 85 ℃, a salt resistance of 100 000 mg/L, a swelling time delay of 7 days, a particle size enlargement factor of 5.5, long?term stability (more than 6 months), and a plugging rate of more than 92.0%, the proposed polymer microsphere featuring delayed swelling can be used for plugging deep microfractures and high?permeability zones in the formations.