Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of rice and brown rice germination on the cadmium content of parboiled rice， and optimize the technological conditions， so as to provide technical reference for reducing the cadmium content of parboiled rice. Methods: Xiangzaoxian 24 rice was used as the experimental material， three treatments of soaking without germination， soaking germination， soaking germination + secondary soaking were set up. The effects of soaking， germination and secondary soaking on the cadmium content of parboiled rice and brown rice were analyzed and compared. The single factor optimization and orthogonal experiments of citric acid concentration， soaking time and soaking temperature were carried out for the germination process of brown rice with good effect of reducing cadmium content. Results: The effect of reducing cadmium content of brown rice sprouting steamed rice was better than that of rice germinating. After optimizing the secondary soaking process of brown rice germination， the optimum process was obtained as follows: citric acid concentration 0.15 mol/L， soaking time 24 hours， soaking temperature 35 ℃. Conclusions: Germination could reduce the binding ability of cadmium and protein， and the cadmium content decreased significantly after secondary soaking. Compared with rice germination treatment， the cadmium content of brown rice parboiled rice was lower. The optimum combination of cadmium content of brown rice was 56.34%.