A small-scale paddy rice transplanter for hilly and mountainous areas faces issues such as few suitable machines, poor transplanting results, and low adaptability and efficiency of large transplanters in small fields. To address these problems, a four-row small-scale paddy rice transplanter was designed, driven by an engine with chain transmission. The machine structure mainly consists of a frame, engine, paddy field wheels, seedling tray, transplanting mechanism, reversing gearbox, and electromagnetic clutch, with a total weight of only 50 kg, facilitating transportation and operation. MATLAB was used for kinematic simulation and analysis of the transplanting mechanism, plotting displacement diagrams of the seedling needles and motion characteristic curves of the transplanting mechanism. ANSYS software was employed for finite element analysis of key components to ensure they meet operational requirements. Experimental studies were conducted with transplanting speed as the experimental factor, using floating rate and missing insertion rate as test indicators. Results showed that under specified transplanting conditions, the floating rate stabilized at around 2.9% and the missing insertion rate at approximately 4.8%. These findings indicate that the designed small-scale transplanter can effectively meet the requirements for rice transplanting operations in hilly areas.