Plants have evolved sophisticated defense systems to enhance drought tolerance. These include the microRNA (miRNA) group of small noncoding RNAs that act as post‐transcriptional regulators; however, details of the mechanisms by which they confer drought tolerance are not well understood. Here, we show that
osa‐MIR171f
, a member of
osa
‐
MIR171
gene family, is mainly expressed in response to drought stress and regulates the transcript levels of
SCARECROW‐LIKE6‐I
(
SCL6‐I
) and
SCL6‐II
in rice (
Oryza sativa
). The
SCL6
genes are known to be involved in shoot branching and flag leaf morphology.
Osa‐MIR171f‐
overexpressing (
osa
‐
MIR171f
‐OE) transgenic plants showed reduced drought symptoms compared with non‐transgenic (NT) control plants under both field drought and polyethylene glycol (PEG)‐mediated dehydration stress conditions. Transcriptome analysis of
osa‐MIR171f
‐OE plants and
osa‐mir171f
‐knockout (K/O) lines generated by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) revealed that
osa
‐mature‐miR171a‐f (
osa
‐miR171) regulates the expression of flavonoid biosynthesis genes, consequently leading to drought tolerance. This upregulation in the
osa‐MIR171f‐
OE plants, which did not occur in NT control plants, was observed under both normal and drought conditions. Our findings indicate that
osa
‐miR171 plays a role in drought tolerance by regulating
SCL6‐I
and
SCL6‐II
transcript levels.