While the adoption of smartphones and apps are already investigated, no study has yet focused on factors affecting the timing of smartphone adoption in agriculture. Understanding the timing of a technology adoption and identifying characteristics of early and late adopters is important to further anticipate and foster the diffusion process. The aim of this study is therefore to analyse the timing of smartphone adoption for agricultural purposes by applying a tobit regression model to a data set of 207 German farmers, which was collected in 2019. Results show that among other factors, farmers’ age, risk attitude and gender as well as farm size and farm location affect the timing of smartphone adoption for agricultural purposes. The results are of interest for several groups of interest like agricultural policy makers, agricultural extension services, providers and sellers of smartphones.