A 3D elastic-plastic finite element model for simulating the soil arching effect in a piled embankment with reinforcements was developed. The load transfer mechanism of the piled embankment with reinforcements was investigated numerically in detail by finite element method. The results show that the embedding of reinforcements in the piled embankment enhances the ability to transfer embankment loads to pile caps. Comparing the magnitude of transferred embankment load, much more embankment loads are transferred to pile caps by the soil arching effect than by the membrane effect. The installation of reinforcements has little influence on the soil arching effect. The membrane effect of the reinforcements appears after the full mobilization of the soil arching effect. The maximum tensile stress in the basal reinforcements occurs at the edge of the pile cap. The membrane effect increases with increasing the reinforcement stiffness and pile spacing, but reduces with increasing the installation height of reinforcements. For a given differential settlement between the pile cap and surrounding soil, the total membrane effect of a piled embankment with two layers of reinforcements is greater than that of a basal reinforced piled embankment. The tensile stress in the first layer of reinforcements is smaller than that in the basal reinforcement in the basal reinforced piled embankment. The higher the location of the second layer of reinforcements, the smaller the tensile stress, and the maximum tensile stress point will move towards to the center of the pile cap.