The over-intensification of cultivated land has created increasingly obvious negative effects that threatened national food security and agricultural economic development. The sustainable intensification of cultivated land use (SICLU) has become a critical path to balance the economic and ecological benefits of agricultural production. However, in the context of the rapid development of new urban and rural revitalization, it remains unclear whether rural labor transfer affects SICLU.Combined with the theoretical connotation of sustainable intensification of cultivated land use, this study utilized super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model to evaluate the sustainable intensification level of cultivated land use in 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 1990 to 2020. It further analyzed the impact of rural labor transfer on SICLU using a threshold model.The results showed: 1) From 1990 to 2020, the SICLU level in China generally showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing. Specifically, from 1990 to 2002, the mean value of SICLU in China showed a fluctuating downward trend, which decreased from 0.448 in 1990 to 0.393 in 2002, with an average annual decline rate of -1.735%. After 2002, the mean value of SICLU in China showed a fluctuating upward trend. Its average value rosed from 0.448 in 2002 to 0.551 in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 8.627%.The ranking of SICLU among regions was Northeast > West > East > Central, and the difference between regions was large. 2) The empirical analysis results based on the panel threshold model showed that the influence of rural labor transfer on SICLU presents a significant U-shaped curve trend. When the rural labor transfer was lower than the threshold value (0.351), the rural labor transfer has a inhibitory effect on the development of SICLU. When he rural labor transfer was higher than the threshold value (0.351), the rural labor transfer can promote the development of SICLU. Meanwhile, three methods were used for robustness testing, including replacing core explanatory variables, changing sample data, and replacing measurement model. 3) The heterogeneity analysis showed that the impact of rural labor transfer on the SICLU was unbalanced due to the difference of regional agricultural economic development level and natural endowment. In agricultural developed areas and plain areas, the rural labor transfer was easy to achieve factor transfer and efficiency improvement, which helps to improve SICLU level. However, in less developed agriculture and mountainous areas, this effect was not significant. Consequently, the government should reasonably guide the non-agricultural transfer of rural redundant labor force in order to realize the sustainable intensive transformation of cultivated land use. On the one hand, the government should optimize the land transfer market and intermediary service organization system to provide institutional guarantee for the realization of large-scale agricultural management; On the other hand, the government should provide necessary financial subsidies and credit services to the main body of direct management of cultivated land, alleviate the financial constraints faced by operators, and pay attention to the cultivation of new quality agricultural labor force to help optimize the allocation structure of agricultural factors. Moreover, we should also consider the regional economic development level and natural endowment conditions, and explore the sustainable intensive development path of cultivated land utilization suitable for regional conditions.