The formation of a uniform Fe-Al inhibition layer with a proper thickness at steel interface during continuous hot-dip galvanizing process is a crucial issue for industrial production. The inhibition layer prohibits the nucleation and growth of brittle Fe-Zn intermetallic compounds which deteriorate the adhesion of the galvanizing coating and result in an inhomogeneous distribution of the coating. The inhibition layer was identified to be Fe₂Al₅ with some Zn dissolved in it. But Fe₂Al₅ inhibition layer was damaged with galvanized time increasing, will lose the inhibition to the Fe-Zn reaction. Nevertheless, there is no systematic and comprehensive investigation the causes of the inhibition layer is damaged. The aim of this work is to clarify the destabilization mechanism of Fe₂Al₅ inhibition layer. In the present study, the mass fraction of 0.2%Al was added into the zinc bath at 450 ℃ for hot-dip galvanizing. SEM was used to observe the structure characteristics of the hot-dip galvanized coating. EDS was used to quantitatively analyze the micro area components of phases and also used its line scan and mapping scan to qualitatively analyze the element change of the coating cross section. By means of the Miedema model and the Toop model, the thermodynamic values of the binary Fe-Al, Fe-Zn and ternary Fe₂Al₅Zn_x (η) intermetallic compounds (IMC) in the coatings were calculated. The fundamental reason for the Fe-Zn reaction caused by Fe₂Al₅ destabilization with galvanized time increasing was analyzed. The results show that because Fe-Al IMC which is generate preferentially had more stable thermodynamic property than Fe-Zn IMC, the continuous Fe₂Al₅ intermetallic compound inhibition layer was produced preferentially at steel and zinc bath interface which inhibit the Fe-Zn reaction. However, with the galvanized time increasing, Fe₂Al₅ destabilization which led to the loss of inhibitory effect of Fe-Zn reaction and produced FeZn₁₀ (δ) . There are two kinds of destabilization mechanism of Fe₂Al₅ inhibition layer, one is that the local depletion of Al at Fe₂Al₅ and zinc bath interface result in erosion of Fe₂Al₅ by Zn and the formed Fe₂Al₅Zn_x caused the decrease of the systematic thermodynamic stability which led to erosion and decomposition of Fe₂Al₅ by Zn. At the same time, FeZn₁₀ (δ) phase was produced between the Fe₂Al₅ and zinc bath interface. The phase transformation process can be described as: Fe₂Al₅→η→L+η→L+η+δ→L+δ. The other kind of destabilization mechanism is Zn diffused to the steel substrate by Fe₂Al₅ grain boundaries and directly produced δ phase between Fe₂Al₅ and steel substrate interface, which caused outburst of Fe₂Al₅. The two kinds of Fe₂Al₅ destabilization mechanism are mutual coexistence and mutual competition, in particular conditions may be a mechanism to occupy absolute advantage.