Return migration is an important part of rural labor mobility in China, and has been given growing concern recently by governments. However, research covering the duration of stay in their home county, a basic question of labor mobility and a precondition for policy making, is far from enough. The aim of this paper is to analyze the period of return for these migrants based on employment history data among rural laborers. The data was collected from a random, nationally representative sample of 100 rural villages in five provinces of China. We find that 22.3 percent of migrants returned from 1998 to 2015, and most returning migrants stay for a long time. Using the OLS, Tobit, and Heckman two-step methods, the results show that returning migrants who are old, more educated, unmarried, and with school-age children are more likely to stay longer in their home county. From a development perspective, returning migrants are expected to play an important role in the process of rural revitalization. Most importantly, the government should still gradually eliminate institutional limitations facing rural people and promote the free flow of labor resources in the process of realizing the integration of urban and rural areas. Acknowledgement : The authors acknowledge the financial assistance of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 713300132).