The mechanism of ohmic contact degradation for the oxidized Au/Ni/Mg-doped GaN under various annealing times has been investigated. According to the results from x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the Cserveny’s concept, we found that an increase of hole concentration of NiOx would lead to the increasing barrier height and the increasing specific contact resistance (ρc) of oxidized Au/Ni/Mg-doped GaN. This suggests that the NiOx plays an important role in increasing (or reducing) the ρc of oxidized Au/Ni/Mg-doped GaN.