Waterish digestion in common pressure (WDCP),dry ashing and microwave digestion are the common sample pretreatment methods for rice cadmium determination by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry was used to determine and analyze the samples which had been treated with the above three digestion methods,so as to discuss the applicability of the three digestion methods. Experiment showed that microwave digestion has the characteristics of simpler operation,fast digestion and high accuracy in comparison with the other methods.