In order to improve the accuracy of position and direction of the tool axis vector and the controlling accuracy of cutter contacting (CC) paths between the cutter and workpiece in the traditional five-axis NURBS interpolation method, a five-axis Tri-NURBS spline interpolation method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the spline interpolation instruction format is proposed, which includes three spline curves, the CC point spline, the tool center point spline, and the tool axis point spline. The next interpolation parameter is calculated based on the tool center point spline combined with the conventional parametric interpolation method. Different from the traditional spline interpolation using the same interpolation parameter for all spline curves, the idea of equal ratio configuration of parameters is proposed in this paper to obtain the next interpolation parameter of each spline curve. The next interpolation tool center point, tool axis point, and CC point on the above three spline curves can be obtained by using different interpolation parameters, so as to improve the accuracy of position and direction of the tool axis vector. Secondly, the producing mechanism of the nonlinear error of CC paths of the traditional spline interpolation is analyzed and the mathematical calculation model of the nonlinear error is established. And then, the compensation and correction method of nonlinear error is also proposed to improve the controlling accuracy of CC paths. In this method, the next CC point on the cutter can be first obtained according to the next interpolation tool center point, tool axis point, and CC point on the three spline curves. And then, the error compensation vector is determined with the two next CC points. To correct the nonlinear error between the next CC point on the cutter and the CC point spline curve, the cutter is translated so that the two next CC points can coincide. In the end, the new tool center point and tool axis point after translation can be calculated to obtain the motion control coordinates of each axis of the machine tool. The MATLAB and VERICUT software are used as a simulation of the real machining data. The results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce the nonlinear error of CC paths. It has high practical value for five-axis machining in effectively controlling the accuracy of CC paths and improving the machining accuracy of complex surfaces.