Stage outsourcing behavior of rice producers has become increasingly important because of the rapid transformation of China’s countryside,which includes the rapid development of land rental markets, village labor out-migration and use of farm machines. However, few studies have addressed this issue using a theoretical framework. We set out to fill this gap in the literature by developing a theoretical model that integrates determinants of rice farmers’ outsourcing behavior and number of rice growing stages outsourced, and use a Probit model and a Poisson model to estimate them at both the growing season-level and the household-level, respectively. Moreover, a multivariate probit model is used to determine whether outsourcing decisions are made at different stages in isolation or if they are related. In particular, we use 2011 data from 325 rice farmers in Jiangxi Province and 2007 data from 307 rice farmers from the same group. The survey covered 8 rice-growing stages over multiple growing seasons. Descriptive and regression results show that (1) stage outsourcing in rice production is a common phenomenon, especially for labor-intensive stages, with technology-intensive stages still generally involving on family labor. (2) Rice farmers with different production scales utilize different outsourcing modes with small-scale rice farmers typically outsourcing labor-intensive stages, while large-scale rice farmers exhibit a higher proportion of technology-intensive stage outsourcing. (3) Focusing on the season-level instead of on the household-level improves rice production outsourcing research by preventing the loss of useful information through the process of data aggregation, which often produces inaccurate results. (4) Multivariate probit model regression results show that outsourcing decisions made at different rice production stages are related, and are not made in isolation. (5) Different factors affect outsourcing decisions at different kind of rice production stages. In general, not only growing non-farm employment opportunities and rising non-farm incomes facilitate rice farmer stage outsourcing, but also reducing outsourcing prices will increase the proportion of outsourcing taking place at each rice production stage. In light of these findings, it is suggested that specialized rice farmers and farmers’ cooperative organizations be gradually developed and encouraged to provide organized services related to seedlings provision and pests and diseases control, etc. As for the traditional and wasteful modes of paddy drying, policy financing and purchasing subsidies should be provided to large rice farmers, mills, and farmers’ cooperatives for dryer purchase, so as to raise the mechanization level in the drying stage of rice production, as well as to safeguard food safety and quality.