Fluridone was registered for use in rice in 2023, offering a new herbicide site of action for growers. However, little information is available on rice tolerance to this herbicide. Field experiments conducted in 2022 and replicated in 2023 near Colt, AR, evaluated the tolerance of twelve rice cultivars to fluridone, applied preemergence or at the 3-leaf growth stage, in separate experiments. Each experiment consisted of one cultivar. Fluridone rates were 0, 168 (1× label rate), and 336 (2× label rate) g ai ha⁻¹ in all experiments. Visible injury varied between years in all experiments, likely due to different environmental conditions. In 2022, injury following preemergence applications of fluridone was below 25% across cultivars. In contrast, in 2023, injury ≥ 30% occurred to five cultivars, with a maximum of 58% observed for the cultivar ‘DG263L’. Across both years, only three cultivars achieved injury ≥ 20% following fluridone applications at the 3-leaf rice. Fluridone negatively affected shoot density, groundcover, chlorophyll content, and days to 50% heading in most cultivars when applied preemergence. When fluridone was applied to 3-leaf rice, at least one of the variables evaluated was negatively affected in two and nine cultivars in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Grain yield reductions of at least 18% were observed in eight cultivars in 2022, and a grain yield decrease from 9% to 49% in eight cultivars occurred in 2023 in the preemergence experiments. Fluridone applied at the 3-leaf rice did not cause a yield penalty to any cultivar in 2022, whereas in 2023, eight cultivars had a yield loss. Yield loss in ‘DG263L’ occurred at the 1× rate in both experiments, indicating this cultivar appears sensitive to fluridone, regardless of the application timing. Based on these findings, fluridone tolerance is cultivar-dependent. Furthermore, preemergence applications of fluridone in rice should be avoided.