Improving farming technical efficiency for smallholders by applying contract farming is an interesting topic nowadays. A cross sectional sample of 250 Vietnamese export-oriented rice households was employed to investigate how contract farming improves farming technical efficiency in the country. The Stochastic Frontier Analysis is applied to estimate the production frontier, the technical inefficiency determinants and Propensity Score Matching is used to control self-selection bias. The results show an average technical efficiency score is of 87.33 percent and suggests convincible opportunities for farmers to increase productivity of export-oriented rice in the country by nearly 13 percent. The expenditures on seed, land, and fertilizer are the key determinants of the technical efficiency level in this region. The results reveal the positive relationship of contract farming participation on technical efficiency improvement. Acknowledgement : The authors acknowledge financial support from the Stiftung Fiat Panis and the Vietnamese Educational and Tranning scholarship. We are also grateful to the Nha Trang University, Vietnam for their support in fieldwork coordination.