A new carbon-number-based kinetic model containing 18 hydrocarbon groups was developed in this work to describe coal tar hydrogenation, and the kinetic parameters were determined by means of fitting the experimental data, obtained in a two-stage fixed-bed reactor hydrogenation experiment, under various operating conditions. Model validation revealed that experimental data considerably agreed with expected outcomes. On this basis, a non-isothermal reactor model based on mass balance and energy balance as well as the proposed reaction kinetic model were constructed to further investigate the behavior of the hydrogenation fixed-bed unit, and the reactor model applied in a bench-scale plant of coal tar hydrogenation accurately simulated and predicted the yield distribution of carbon number products and the temperature profile along with the reactor. In addition, the entire process simulation for coal tar hydrogenation was developed using Aspen Plus. The simulation provided a significant guide for the optimization and design of industrial-scale hydrogenation.