Abstract: The development of the digital economy provides opportunities for the outsourcing of agricultural machinery services. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces（municipalities and autonomous regions） in China from 2011 to 2021, using the FGLS model, IV-2SLS, IV-GMM, threshold model and other methods, we empirically test the effect and mechanism of the digital economy on the outsourcing of agricultural machinery services, and find that the digital economy plays a significant role in promoting the outsourcing of agricultural machinery services, specifically, for every unit of improvement in the digital economy, agricultural machinery service outsourcing will be increased by 0.349 units. The mechanism test shows that the digital economy indirectly promotes the outsourcing of agricultural machinery services by promoting non-agricultural employment, strengthening social networks, and industrial agglomeration paths. The threshold model shows that the digital economy has a reversal effect of aging and a marginal incremental effect of marketization on agricultural machinery service outsourcing. Specifically, the reversal effect of aging is shown as the regression coefficient of digital economy on agricultural machinery service outsourcing changes from 0.244 to-0.012 5 when aging crosses the threshold of 0.017 1, the marginal incremental effect of marketization is shown as the regression coefficient of digital economy on agricultural machinery service outsourcing changes from 0.031 7 to 0.565 when marketization crosses the threshold of 3.25. The heterogeneity shows that the digital economy on agricultural machinery service outsourcing has significant geographical differences, agricultural functional area differences, and topographical location differences, and that the digital economy promotes agricultural machinery service outsourcing more in the western region, the main grain-producing areas, and the plains.