Abstract Developing highly durable and active Pt-supported catalysts is currently the most prominent and practicable electrocatalyst design strategy for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) due to their high electrocatalytic stability and activity. Herein, we fabricated CeO 2 nanorods with tiny Pt nanoparticles that possess good electrocatalytic behavior for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). In addition, the presence of Ce 3+ and small Pt nanoparticles (3.46 nm) enhanced strong metal interaction, facilitating the formation of oxygen vacancies on the CeO 2 surface to boost the MOR performance. Hence, the Pt-CeO 2 catalyst revealed high mass activity (1414.0 mA mg −1 ) and areal-specific activity (1.615 mA cm −2 ) towards MOR in an acidic electrolyte, which was three times that of the 20% Pt/C catalyst (545.4 mA mg −1 and 0.856 mA cm −2 ). Besides, the Pt-CeO 2 catalyst exhibited excellent performance of MOR in an alkaline electrolyte and retained 90.44% of its initial mass activity after 5000 cycles due to the unique morphology and synergistic effects between Pt and CeO 2 . Pt-CeO 2 is regarded as a promising MOR electrocatalyst for DMFC applications. Graphical Abstract