Abstract: With the acceleration of urbanization, many rural areas in China are facing continuous shrinkage pressure. Scientific measurement and analysis of the level of rural shrinkage and its spatial and temporal differentiation are of great significance for guiding rural smart shrinkage, promoting urban-rural integration, and achieving high-quality rural development and rural revitalization. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2021, this study constructs a comprehensive measurement system of rural smart shrinkage from four dimensions: demographic, spatial, economic, and social, and analyzes the degree of rural smart shrinkage and its influencing factors across different regions. The results show that: 1) China’s rural smart shrinkage presents a pattern of “overall steady evolution with local transitions,” remaining mainly at levels II–III, while shrinkage intensity demonstrates significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity; 2) The temporal evolution can be divided into four distinct stages: decline, rebound, stabilization, and leapfrogging, showing clear phase transitions; 3) The spatial pattern has shifted from an initial “east-high and west-low” unipolar structure to a gradient synergy of “eastern leadership, central accumulation, and western catch-up”; 4)Endogenous factors such as elderly care services and industrial scale interact with exogenous factors such as policy regulation. Government implementation capacity plays the dominant role in western regions, while industrial development drives the central and eastern regions, with significant phase-specific differences; 5)Rising urbanization intensifies rural population loss and factor imbalance, weakens industrial vitality, and creates a negative cycle of “siphoning effect and shrinkage inhibition.”