Rice quality and safety is important for achieving national food security and social stability. Rice has been contaminated with heavy metals, pesticide residues, and fungal toxins, which has affected the healthy development of China’s rice industry and raised public concerns about the quality and safety of rice. Studies on risk assessment and early warning techniques for rice quality and safety can not only contribute to formulating rice-related policies, regulations and standards, but also can timely identify and prevent the potential risks, which have become an important field in rice quality and safety control. In this article, the main hazards including heavy metals, pesticide residues, and fungal toxins in rice and their possible sources were analyzed. Moreover, rice risk assessment techniques including hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment and risk characterization, as well as rice early warning technologies including pre-harvest warning, post-harvest warning and whole course warning were summarized, aiming to provide reference for scientific supervision and effective control of hazards in rice.