[Objective] The aims of this study are to estimate the willingness of residents to pay for farmland protection in Beijing City, to investigate the differences of willingness between urban and rural residents, and analyze the driving factors that cause the differences, in order to provide the theory references for the development of object-oriented differentiated cultivated land protection policy.[Methods] Choice experiment(CE) method was employed. R statistical language software and econometric models was used.[Results] The amount of rural residents willing to pay for the protection of cultivated land area, quality and landscape ecological environment was 67.24, 113.75 and 51.47 yuan per year, respectively, while the amount of urban residents willing to pay was 58.07, 66.40 and 150.80 yuan per year, respectively.[Conclusion] The willingness of urban residents to pay for land protection was significantly higher than that of rural residents, individual's willingness to pay was positively related to their education, annual total income of household and dependent population in family. From the perspective of functional requirements, the highest demand for urban and rural residents were ecological function and production function, respectively, this difference in demand was driven by individual's preferences and needs.